Hi there!

Greetings, good gentles all! New Yankee member here!

I just bought (or sort of bought) a 2004 RSV1000R. I've won it on e-bay for $3825 US--and it's claimed to be in mint condition by its original owner. Unfortunately the poor bloke banged himself up at a track day (on his other bike luckily--if such a thing can be said to be in any way lucky); so it may take awhile for me to conclude the transaction and take possession of the bike.

You guys have a nice little forum here, and I'm looking forward to becoming a member of the Aprilia family. My mom is a Neapolitan, BTW, so I guess that after 40 years of riding and wrenching British and Japanese bikes, an Italian motorcycle has always been part of my genes, if only recently part of my destiny.

Which brings me to my first question for this august group: I've searched high and low and cannot find even a hint of how the company came up with the name "Aprilia." I know it's a town in Italy, about 40 clicks south of Roma. But what, if any, is the connection with the city?

Inquiring minds just want to know.

Cheers!
Roberto

welcome aboard mate:thumbup,
hope your transaction goes ok with your bike, and im not sure why chose the city "Aprilia" maybe its where the main developer originated:dunno.

Lewy...

Welcome to the zone mate

Welcome to the zone fella .......:thumbup

Welcome to the mad house dude! :biggrin

Hi bud, welcome aboard!!!!!!

As for the Aprilia name....who knows dude???????

hello matey, welcome to the zone - hope it all goes nice a smoothley with the transaction. post up a few pics when you can.

Deacs :thumbup

Don't think there is a direct translation for the word Aprilia into an english meaning.

I asked my mate who works for an Italian bike specialist which is italian owned and his boss said it means fast or racing as the nearest translation.

Apparantly Italian cars were given this name to designate the sporty models back in the 50's 60's,
Lancia made a car called an Aprilia model much like ford might call a supa doopa model an RS or GT to designate it's pedigree.

It's certainly nothing to do with the place or the founder (Ivano Beggio) as far as i can gather.
Aprilia's whole ethos was sell some bikes to pay to go racing, a means to an end. Hence why they were crap at balancing the books and went bust.

Welcome Roberto.
Interesting explanation Spoonz, thanks.

Welcome robertllr,
Best of luck with the purchase, an interesting question about the origin of the name,not something I`d thought about, but nonetheless nice too know,
sandy v2

welcome to the asylum dude.
Ck

spoonz said:

Don't think there is a direct translation for the word Aprilia into an english meaning.

I asked my mate who works for an Italian bike specialist which is italian owned and his boss said it means fast or racing as the nearest translation.

Apparantly Italian cars were given this name to designate the sporty models back in the 50's 60's,
Lancia made a car called an Aprilia model much like ford might call a supa doopa model an RS or GT to designate it's pedigree.

It's certainly nothing to do with the place or the founder (Ivano Beggio) as far as i can gather.
Aprilia's whole ethos was sell some bikes to pay to go racing, a means to an end. Hence why they were crap at balancing the books and went bust.

Click to expand...

99.99% correct Spoonz :thumbup

The 0.01% is deducted 'cos it was Alberto Beggio ( Ivano's father) who founded the company in 1956 to make bicycles.

I only know this useless info due to the fact that my bike came with a pristine book entitled APRILIA The Complete Story by Mick Walker.

Now apparently there was also an electrical company called Aprilia up to 1977, a sort of Italian Lucas known as Italy's ' Prince of Darkness' and their gear was fitted to all Italian motor bikes,in fact Ducati used exclusively Aprilia electrical components,switches horn,lights,relays etc

In fact Aprilia was single handedly responsible for all the complaints about poor Italian electrics and chrome until they went bust and allowed in the Germans and Japanese manufacturers to improve standards.

So goodness knows how unreliable Aprilias would have been had they been stuck with Aprilia electrics.:dunno

Aha! I think, then, that the English equivalent would probably be "Special." That was a term often applied not only to race-prepped production sports cars of the 50's and '60's, but even more frequently to dedicated racing cars. These were often only vaguely based on production models, or (in some cases) scratch-built for the track.

Thanks for that info, Spoonz!

Welcome to the zone, friend!

I never really thought about it, just ASSumed it was someone's name or invention. All I know is, when I tell someone what make my bike is, I get blank looks shortly followed by, " Is that something made by Ducati?"

Here in Harley-central, if it doesn't thrash itself to bits, it's not a REAL motorcycle! I guess this is the old adage: Mysery loves company".

Uhh....that's "misery".