Ducati News Today

After many years of waiting, Honda have finally built a new, 1200cc V4 Sports Tourer. Dripping in (unnecessary) technology, the new bike is eagerly awaited by those who have loved all previous Honda V4’s. Despite being the latest and greatest, the VFR has something in common with another V4 that Ducati so nearly put into production almost 50 years ago, the Ducati Apollo.

Back in the early 1960’s, Ducati was a small, Italian company that hadn’t made a motorcycle larger than a 350cc single. These were the days when a 500 was a big bike! The US importer, Berliner Motor Corporation, was selling fully 85% of Ducatis production and so had incredible influence over the factory. Berliner was convinced the US police bike market was a target worth shooting for but this would require a bike of at least 1200cc.

The solution was ambitious – build a large V4.

Apart from meeting U.S. police regulations, the brothers’ only stipulation was that the bike have an engine bigger than anything in Harley’s range, which was then topped by the 1215cc FL-series models. The remainder of the technical specifications were left to Taglioni, who decided on a 90-degree V-four whose perfect primary balance negated a counterbalancer, even with 180-degree crank throws (each pair of pistons rising and falling together) and separate, differentially finned air-cooled cylinders. The two valves per cylinder were operated via pushrods and rockers with screw-type adjusters, while the horizontally split wet-sump engine featured a single crank running in a central support, with each pair of con-rods sharing a single caged roller-bearing big end.

link: Motorcyclist Online

The new Honda VFR and the Ducati Apollo share more than just a V4 configuration and around 1200cc capacity. the Honda shares with the Duke the unusual approach of mounting the rear two cylinders inboard of the front pair. This makes the engine narrower right where the riders’ legs typically sit. This choice makes for more expense, since the front and rear cylinder heads are no longer interchangeable.

In a conventional V4, the front cylinder bank is staggered to one side of the rear, with the cylinders in each bank equally spaced. The left pair of cylinders share one crankpin while the right pair share another, with the front connecting rods both to the same side of the rear rods. This makes the amount of stagger between the banks the width of one connecting rod. On the VFR1200, the rear cylinders’ connectin rods are both mounted inboard of the front cylinders’ rods.

Source: Stop Watch – Sport Rider, March 2010

The Taglioni designed, 1256cc V4 produced a claimed 100bhp at 7,000rpm, a whole bunch of power for 1964 and almost twice the 74 cubic inch Harley. The power would turn out to be the problem since tire technology of the day simply could not cope. A combination of the power and weight overwhelmed the 16″ tires and the engine was progressively detuned back to 65bhp.

In this knee capped tune, the business model was not as attractive and despite Berliner preparing a sales brochure and demonstrating the Apollo to good effect to police departments, Ducati withdrew funding and the project was terminated.

Only 2 prototypes were built and both survive and are pretty much priceless. On the other hand the Honda VFR1200 will be much more affordable and readily available!

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