APRILIA RS660

A FEW OF US MIGHT remember when Aprilia entered the Australian motorcycle octagon and quickly made a name for itself.

Its bikes were like nothing else on the market. They were painted like party girls – a chiaroscuro of competing colours smeared on pure, look-at-me Italian weaponry. And just like party girls, they certainly weren’t for tame, mousey souls.

Aprilia was clearly uninterested in attracting mice to its marque.

And then in 1995, more mice were ignored with the advent of Aprilia’s brilliant two-stroke missiles – the RS125 and RS250. Legitimate race-bikes you could ride on the road. Beautiful, wicked, and brilliant, they were the last gasp of the two-stroke era.

At that time, the various state governments were busily enforcing safety on L-platers by limiting what was available for them to ride, and 250cc bikes were being foisted on wild-eyed teenagers by Safety Karens everywhere.

Happily, it took the Safety Karens a little while to work out that this