Aprilia's canned Moto2 project

WHEN the intermediate class switched from two-stroke 250s to the new four-stroke Moto2 category Aprilia were against the idea of using engines supplied by Honda, however they did prepare a chassis that was 'almost ready' for competition.

In the end, the reason why the Moto2 project was abandoned was because Aprilia judged the use of engines derived from the CBR600RR and from a rival manufacturer as 'useless' and 'harmful' to their image.

With this in mind, Aprilia opted to concentrate on their World Superbike effort following the decision. However, the above picture, captured by Infomoto2, shows the prototype chassis that they were working on.

We have compared the Moto2 bike to the their notorious MotoGP effort, the RS3 Cube, and the lines of the fairing are incredibly similar to the infamous 990 whilst the twin-spar frame is similar in shape to that of the defunct RSA250.

For 2012, Aprilia are making small in-roads back into the MotoGP paddock by supplying CRT teams with engines based upon the RSV4, which many people originally believe was developed for the 990 era. Should MotoGP continue down the route of CRT bikes, it would be logical that Aprilia could return to this project and marry this chassis with their V4 engine.