Hang on to your Tilly hats; MV Agusta’s just dropped a couple of new adventure-tourers – and one of them is their teeniest bopper yet.
Well, not that teeny…
The ‘bopper’ in question is Agusta’s own Lucky Explorer 5.5 – a punchy adventure-tourer sporting 554cc from its DOHC parallel-Twin engine, inspired by the Italian Cagiva Elefant, and based on Chinese QJ Motor’s QJ500GS.
The bike’s biggest feature, though, is definitely that new Agusta heart (70.5mm bore and 71mm stroke) – a fresh unit that poses the potential to have torque available throughout the power band.
Other perks for the 5.5 include the seat height – 33.8 inches high – and a nice midsize weight which (we are told from Motorcycle.com) will be something along the lines of 484 pounds with 5.3 gallons of fuel on board.
Agusta has also, just today, also revealed the Lucky Explorer 9.5 – a beautiful beastie with 931 pretty cc’s to its name, claiming 123 hp @ 10,000 rpm and 75.2 lb-ft. @ 7,000 rpm.
The cylinder head, steel intake and exhaust valves, head-cylinder base gasket, and forged aluminum-alloy pistons are all purported to be unique to the machine, with Motorcycle.com stating the usual counter-rotating steel crankshaft of the machine to be “offset by 120° in a 1-2-3 firing order.”
Motorcycle.com muses that “both models appear ready for production, but the “Project” in the name implies they are still prototypes, and it’s unclear whether they will eventually be sold with the Lucky Explorer name or if they’ll actually be named for the bike that influenced their design: the Cagiva Elefant.”
The 5.5 and 9.5 both currently feature the original Dakar Racer’s Lucky Explorer logo, with not much else known about the bikes apart from the fact that BikeWale says it’s unlikely there will be an India launch for these machines unless MV Agusta reintroduces themselves to that corner of the world.
Expect launches in a few European (as well as the Asian) markets, with pricing TBA and the full spec sheet released by the beginning of next year.
We will keep our ear low to the ground for you on other stories related to this; in the meantime, be sure to pick up on other stories coming out of EICMA via our specially-curated “EICMA 2021” category, and as always – stay safe on the twisties.