MV Agusta has seen tough times. Ever since their founder’s son, Count Domencio Agusta died in 1971, the company has had a troubled balance sheet. Things kept chugging badly till 1980 when they crashed. Cagiva though revived the brand with the four cylinder F4 range in the early 90s but the debt ridden brand was sold off to Proton towards the fag end of 2004.
Since then it has been juggled thorough Harley Davidson, private ownership and now a stake by Mercedes AMG. And if rumours are to be believed another American brand may soon be on its way to be associated with the Agusta brand. The folks at Cycle News recently spoke to Mr Giovanni Castiglioni, President and CEO of MV Agusta, and here are some quick pointers from the interview:
- The money from the Mercedes deal was strictly for marketing and sales. MV Agusta badged motorcycles were to be placed at 360 AMG performance centres which would have led to an increase in sales by 2,000 units. However, none of this really materialised. In fact, he added:
“At the end of the day nothing happened, and the reality is that we put their logo on our bike and they put ours on their car, and that’s been the sum total of our collaboration.”
- Mercedes believes that to increase profitability one needs to increase sales. MV Agusta though is of a completely different mindset and prides on exclusivity.
- He believes MV Agusta can make the best possible American cruiser but they will not do that.
- The Tourismo Veloce family will be expanded in the future.
- No new four pot F4 coming this EICMA. The planned updates though have not been cancelled and may see the light of the day in the future. The focus for now will be on the F4 Brutale!
- Regarding new products he gave a very clear direction without spilling details:
“We’ll only have two. One is a special edition of an existing model, the other completely new, one three cylinder, one on our four cylinder platform. But that’s all.”
- He however stayed clear of a possible small capacity bike as he believes anything around 300 or even 400 cc will mean death for a brand like MV Agusta.
- Lastly he did confirm that he is in talks with Polaris. More on that in our older article which can be accessed via this link.
