Riding the prototype promises a more refined and accessible customer version.

Mind-Blowing! That’s the expression that the marketing mob at MV Agusta has designated as the one they’d like to pass your lips when you see, and especially ride, the first new model of its born-again corporate existence. Born-again as in MV Agusta is a newly independent company, reborn for the umpteenth time after its latest escape from the last-chance saloon that it was consigned to by the 2024 collapse of its KTM/Pierer Mobility parent. 

The much-anticipated, all-new Brutale Serie Oro is powered by a heavily revamped version of the all-new 931 cc three-cylinder engine equipping the Enduro Veloce, which arrived in MV dealers’ showrooms last year. Just 300 examples will be built of this limited-edition model that’s due to commence production this spring. But it’ll be followed almost immediately afterwards by the volume production version of the bike, which MV executives insist will be priced much more competitively than has been the case with any of their products in the recent past.

Happy Birthday Brutale

Coincidentally or not, the new bike is also MV’s way of recording a significant birthday for the Brutale model that’s become synonymous with the brand, for it’s exactly a quarter of a century since design legend Massimo Tamburini’s unique take on the Naked Sports sector (which his pupil Miguel Galluzzi had created in 1992 by concocting the Ducati Monster) was unveiled to mass acclaim in limited edition 300-off Serie Oro 750 cc four-cylinder guise at the September 2000 Intermot Show in Munich. 

The exact quantity of Brutales made since then isn’t recorded officially, but company insiders say the combined total of all the different variants in terms of capacity and styling is well over 40,000 bikes. That makes its latest version worth paying attention to, because once again MV has reinvented one of its core models, and made the best better still.

I can make that judgement after being invited to MV’s Varese factory ahead of three other journalists for an exclusive look at — and first ride on — the new bike in pre-production prototype form. After being the first person outside the company to ride the Brutale 750 Serie Oro in March 2001, a couple of months before production began that spring, it was a nice way to square the circle 25 years on!

Testing the Prototypes

I had company along the way, though, with Federico Macario, MV Agusta’s Head of Business Development, and essentially the company’s Project Leader overseeing the Brutale project, riding alongside me all day as we headed out toward the Swiss frontier…