VDUE 500: THE STROKER THAT BROKE BIMOTA

The Bimota Vdue may have been a failure in most aspects of its life, however, it did achieve one notable accomplishment. So unsuccessful was this quite frankly ridiculous folly for parent company Bimota that it actually managed to send the entire company to the receivers. While recovering from some ‘financial issues’ in the mid 1990s, Bimota’s management decided it would be a great idea to build an ‘all Bimota’ bike. Up until this point the company had used engines built by other manufacturers in their products. However, as a new millennium approached, the bosses decided it was the perfect time to construct their own engine. What’s the worst that could happen? Bimota had been toying with entering 500GPs for a while, so they had the basic designs of a 500cc two-stroke already on their drawing boards that were done by two-stroke specialist TAU Motori, which they decided to modify for road use. While some consider the Vdue a ‘GP bike for the road’, the fact was that Honda’s NSR500V V-twin was a failure