I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a nice Benelli Tornado to write up for a while now. These represent a reasonably successful attempt to resurrect the storied Italian brand and they’re supposedly still producing variations of this bike, although the company was bought by the Chinese Group Qianjiang and are currently being built there.
Modern Benellis were showing up with decent regularity as untitled holdovers or low-mileage speculator bikes until recently, but have since become scarce. Have sellers given up or have they been snapped up and squirreled away?
2008 Benelli Tornado Tre 1130 for sale on eBay
Originally developed as a three cylinder, 900cc machine that was teased at the 1999 Milan motorcycle show, displacement for production bikes was upped when it became clear this would be a streetbike and displacement limits for racing could be safely ignored. Think of this as the big-displacement Daytona that Triumph never built.
Reviews at the time flattered the style [duh] and the bike featured some very interesting design features, including a radiator tucked up into the tail section that kept the weight of the engine as far forward as possible. A cool design feature emphasized by brightly-colored fans to help pull air across it, but I wonder what that’s like for riders and potential pillion passengers…
Power, especially for the 900cc version, was not top-of-the-class, but it was very smooth and characterful. Although early models had somewhat iffy fueling at lower revs, this got better over time and is relatively easy to fix.
Parts availability could be iffy moving forward, as the dealer network was never much to write home about and is likely much, much worse now. FastBikes magazine has been running one as a long-termer and back issues might make a great resource for tuning, parts, and substitutions that could be made to work. That end-can would be the first thing to go if I bought one, and I’ll bet any number of other parts could be modified to fit: a stubby little low-mount can from Arrow would probably clean up the rear nicely.
From the original eBay listing: 2008 Benelli Tornado for Sale
Light scratches, possibly dings or dents, might be missing a nut or bolt.
Comes from the factory loaded with all kinds of premium parts that beg to be ogled.
It would be prudent to have a fair amount of exotic experience to own this beast.
The riding design and eccentricities of the bike will demand a strong confident hand,
otherwise you will end up on the pavement along with a hefty repair bill.
Its design is something to behold. The ram air intakes run the entire inner length
of the bike to the rear section where it forces the air onto the radiator concealed within
the rear cowling.
To add to the impressive looks, there are two fully functioning fans in the rear that kick on to pull air over the radiator when it hits a certain temperature.
The bike comes with a cd copy of the service manual and a few spare parts.
This is one of those bikes I’d love to have in my fantasy garage. There are faster bikes for less money, and parts may be a pain. But the styling is distinctive and very pretty, and the bike is fast enough to challenge all but the very fastest riders. Although with bodywork like that, this probably isn’t the best bike for hard-core track days…
When you can ride something as rare and elegant, I think the trade offs are worth it.
-tad
