The inside line on MV

Giovanni Castiglione talks to Motor Cycle Monthly about the current state of MV Agusta…

MCM: Are you satisfied with MV’s current position?

GC: “We are very happy with MV Agusta’s performance in the market – we are hitting all our targets and positive we can sell more than 10,000 bikes in 2014; a 33% increase, over the last year. We have 13 models on the market with the Turismo Veloce to come, and one more brand new model to be launched during the year – it’s a bike you have not seen yet. Now we have completed work on the range of three cylinder bikes, we’re ready to start work on our four cylinder range which will hit the market in two years’ time, with the same concept: same platform, different models.”

MCM: Where does the Dragster fit in this vision?

GC: “In a few years MV have gone from a superbike company to a company that’s grown to include supersport, naked, maxi-naked, motard and touring models. For us the Dragster is in between the naked and the maxi-naked. It is an extreme, high-end version of the 800 Brutale. The concept behind this bike started with the 675 Brutale, which we built to give more confidence to any type of rider. But we didn’t forget that the origin of the Brutale is an extreme bike, the 1090 – and so we have added to the Brutale 800 version with a bike of minimum weight, maximum power, pure fun, exclusive but still at a competitive price. The feeling of riding the Dragster is very different to the Brutale.”

MCM: Do you regret bringing the F3 675 to market with unresolved fuelling issues? 

GC: “These improvements in fuelling that we started with the Rivale we have brought to the 675 F3 and Brutale, and the 800 models as well. When we came to market we were the first ones with this technology and to put so much electronics in a mid-sized engine. We paid a little bit for that. So now we want to show you what we’ve done, and to say that we can give this to all our customers – it is very important that all our customers who bought a bike two years ago, can now completely change their engine strategy and have the upgraded system for free.”

Read the full review of the Dragster here