Used Buyer’s Guide
Benelli come up trumps with the old school Tornado Novecentro TRE
There are some bikes that everyone has an opinion on – the Benelli Tornado Novecentro Tre is one such machine. Those who have never ridden, or most probably never even sat on a Tre, will confidently tell you that they are unreliable pieces of Italian junk before riding off on their run-of-the-mill Japanese sportsbike. However ask an owner what they think of the bike and you will get a very different side to the story.
While it is most certainly true that very few owners will admit they have bought a lemon, the simple fact of the matter is that despite what all the headlines have said over the years, the Benelli Tornado isn’t actually a bad motorcycle. Quite the opposite, it is actually a good one. The problem Benelli had with the Tornado was it was brought to market too early (or late depending on your point of view) and as such suffered from some very high profile issues.
This, combined with the fact that the dealer network and Benelli themselves didn’t really get to grips with the problems quickly enough, cast a dark cloud over the bike in what should have been its glorious launch year. And its lack of success in WSB did little to lift this gloom.
Too little, too late
In wonderful Italian style, having unveiled the Tre as a concept in 1999, built the homologation special LE version in 2001 and raced in WSB from 2001 until 2002, by the time the road bike arrived in 2003 the race team had already disbanded without a single top ten finish to its name. As launches go, that’s not exactly a great start to proceedings.
And the same issues that dogged the Benelli WSB team also affected the road bike – namely a lack of power and a poor degree of reliability.
The motorcycle world was a changing place in 2003 and sadly for the Tornado it arrived in the middle of all this upheaval. The supersport class had just exploded into life with the arrival of the all-new CBR600RR and ZX-6R and these machines boasted cutting edge technology, fresh looks and claimed power figures in the mid-120bhps, which wasn’t that much less than the 133bhp Benelli claimed for the Tre. Then, just a year later and once Benelli had banished most of its reliability gremlins, the litre bike class was suddenly revitalised with 170bhp beasts, WSB went 1000cc and no one wanted a 900cc triple anymore, even one that looked as stunning as the Tornado.
Sales died away and Benelli dealers resorted to either heavy discounting or just sticking them in a back corner to gather dust – hence the reason you still see ‘new’ bikes for sale and it is so hard to work out when the Tornado went out of production.
Fancy footwork
So should you consider owning this Italian damp squib? If you like quirky machines, the Tornado is by far and away the cheapest entry into the Italian exotica market. And once sorted is actually a really enjoyable machine to own and ride – provided you treat it right.
There are so many positive points when it comes to the Tornado, but we will start with its chassis as this is undoubtedly the highlight. A clever combination of cast aluminium sections that are glued to a tubular steel trellis, Benelli used all their WSB experience to get it spot on when it came to handling. Blessed with a super-steep head angle thanks to the repositioning of the radiator to under the bike’s seat giving the design team room for manoeuvre, the Tre has a lovely front heavy weight bias that makes it impressively agile with a great front end feeling.