The 1974 Laverda SFC is the high-water mark for 1970s Italian sportbikes, representing the pinnacle of Laverda’s race bike development and the final SFC offered in the states, as the US mandated left-side shift after September of ’74. The Laverda’s big parallel twin made about 75 horsepower, heady grunt for an era where 100 ponies…
The Yamaha RZ350 represents the last available road-going two stroke available in the U.S., and it brought to bear the full might of Yamaha’s research and development into oil burners up to that point. In ’85, the bikes paid tribute to King Kenny Roberts, sporting his factory bumble bee livery and his signature on the…
Before Yamaha dropped its lithe, world-beating R1 in 1998, it had already set the bar pretty high for itself with the YZF1000R Thunderace, which took home bike of the year honors in ’97. Elsewhere around the globe, the YZF1000R was sold for seven years, stepping in as a blistering sport touring mount once the R1…
To the average sportbike addict, the 2008 Ducati Desmosedici RR stands alone among race replica bikes as the one that nailed all the details and defined the genre in a taught, carbon fiber-clad package. Honda saddled its RC213-VS with electronic nannies, a restrictive exhaust and a collectors-only asking price. Ducati engaged in no such silliness.…
The seller of this 2013 MV Agusta F4-RR seems to know little about its history or provenance, but it appears to have been mostly for track use up to this point, and sports a monoposto tail section devoid of taillights or provisions for license plates. The ad says the bike has a clear title, but…
The Yamaha FZ600 broke cover in 1986, right as the fully-faired sportbike wave seriously started to swell, and helped start the careers of myriad young racers and hobbyists. When it debuted, it was aimed squarely at the Honda CBR600F and the Kawasaki Ninja 600 and gave its competitors some serious worries at the racetrack. 1987…
The souped-up version of Ducati’s iconic 916, the 2000 Ducati 996S allowed Duc to keep the Massimo Tamburini styling that still did not look dated and make a raft of mechanical mods to keep up with the Joneses. The bores got embiggened, parts from the 916 SPS became standard, and horsepower climbed to the mid-120s,…
Update 12.19.2017: eBay shows this bike has sold for $5k. Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Built to celebrate Honda’s AMA F1 and Daytona 200 successes in the early to mid-’80s, the Honda VF1000R was bedecked with everything Honda’s skunk works had bolted together for its racebikes, and made the kind of power that the…