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It looks like things are improving for the Aprilia brand for a number of reasons. Since Dec 30, 2004, the Piaggio Group has taken full control of the company as another piece of the pie joining Moto Guzzi and Laverda among others. According to an article in RoadRacing World, there is opportunity by sharing the dealer network to combine and possibly expand sales with the Moto Guzzi & Aprilia brands. As a proud owner of two Aprilia’s, it is pleasing to see that the dealer network may expand…the main weakness of the brand IMO. Lack of a dealer support structure and the inability to get OE parts has plagued the brand in the past few years, but that said the parts availability issue is improving.

Another interesting item for Aprilia is the recent cooperation with BMW to develop and produce a new line of bikes for the German company. Aprilia has already succesfully executed a similar venture with BMW from 1993 to 1999 with the F650 machine. Apparently, BMW like what they saw with that relationship, and IMO like what they see with Aprilia’s future.

One reason for the venture is to free up some of BMW’s internal resources (engineering, manufacturing, etc.)for other projects. This is a great plan for BMW since Aprilia has the infrastructure and the manufacturing capacity to support the extra volume, especially since the operations component of producing a motorcycle is very capital intensive. For obvious reasons, the project is great for Aprilia in order to fill the manufacturing lines again, given the financial struggles Aprilia has faced recently.

Sidebar: On the flip-side, I am a little surprised that ‘Big Brother’ has not intervened in Germany with a 10-12′ish% unemployment rate. It will be interesting to see how the Eurocrats react to that.

Finally, good news for race fans (and IMO the brand in the US). It appears that the CEO of Piaggio has committed to dropping out of MotoGP and will return to WSBK. Can I get a WOOHOO!!! I’m fairly impartial to the MotoGP decision as it take money to make money, innovation, and brand recognition. I certainly don’t blame Aprilia for trying…as for the timing with the previous financial woes??? BUT, the witdrawal from WSBK was dumb, dumb, DUMB! That’s the bike that sells on Mondays. With Haga as the pilot in the 2002 season (I know, I know he crashed a lot), the Mille was never boring to watch. Heck I was at turn 4 in the Flag Room at Laguna that year and he made it up to 2nd place before…ahem…crashing.

Hopefully the RSVR Factory will get good Aprilia factory tech and financial support whenever they actually return to WSBK. Put a few notches in the WSBK - heck even the AMA SBK - win column and the sales will be there com Monday. Hmmm…the selfish part of me does not want to spoil the small club of us current Aprilia owners in the know of the little known secret of how well put-together these bikes are! I actually enjoy (for the moment) not seeing other Aprilias on the road.