When a stylist designs a motorcycle

The prototype Aprilia Moto 6.5 was based around a strippeddown Pegaso trail bike, fitted with the reliable and well-proven, Rotax-developed, water-cooled, five-valve, 650cc single-cylinder engine. Designer Phillippe Starck once opined during an interview: “I can design a chair in two minutes and a hotel in a dayand-a-half. I’m like Doctor Faust. I would sign a contract with the devil and sell my life for the sake of creativity. I work with only paper and pen then make the prototype – until an engineer explains to me there is a technical problem, I don’t change a thing.” So you can image how many conversations Starck probably had with Aprilia’s R&D teams! Unlike a chair, a food blender or even a hotel, the design constraints and restrictions around a motorcycle are somewhat more limited. There’s only a finite amount of space available and everything has to fit within a given silhouette. Unlike some of Stark’s other designs, it’s simply not possible to increase a dimension just to accommodate some aesthetic frippery or other.

Numerous external agencies have been brought in to change the profile of the humble motorcycle. Ogle Design styled the original BSA Rocket 3 and Triumph Trident, and the Americans (and many Brits) hated it. Thankfully, Craig Vetter did a much better job with the X-75 Hurricane. Perhaps the most famous is Target Design’s re-working of numerous Suzuki fours to deliver the seminal Katana range… which again polarised opinion at its launch. Even the super successful stylists at the old Meriden Triumph factory could drop the occasional clanger. Headlamp nacelles might have been okay, but when the factory rolled out the so-called bath tub faired twins, buyers voted with their feet and went elsewhere. Will the Aprilia Moto 6.5 latterly become a style icon or a white elephant? Only time will tell.