Moto Morini’s Reviving Its 1,187cc V-Twin

The old 1,187cc V-Twin will find its way into a new adventure bike.

By: Earl Davidson

Oct 2, 2022 at 1:32pm ET

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Moto Morini’s bringing back its 1,187cc V-Twin engine. The Italian brand’s been laying low compared to others, but it’s slowly regaining traction in the market after the takeover by the Zhongneng Vehicle Group.

Early product development photos suggest that a new adventure bike from the brand is coming soon, and it appears the Moto Morini’s old 1,187cc V-Twin engine could make a comeback. Called the Bialbero CorsaCorta V-Twin, the engine once powered the Granpasso, Corsaro, Milano, and Morini’s Scrambler models. Because this engine was shelved for a while, the aforementioned model names took a back seat in favor of 650cc parallel twins borrowed from CFMoto.

The brand has promised larger-displacement models soon are on the way, and the 1,187cc V-Twin could be the ticket that gets Moto Morini into the big leagues in the adventure segment. The issue that plagued the earlier iterations of the V-Twin was the emissions, but it seems that the brand has tweaked or will tweak it enough to pass regulations. Such a development could lead to the brand’s revival in countries like the US or even in Europe.

With that, the engine will find its way into a new chassis that shares design details that are similar to the Moto Morini X-Cape. Moto Morini has already drawn up these pictures and it definitely shows an adventure bike. It also seems unlikely that the model will be called the Granpasso because it will be an entirely new model around an old engine.

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However, we do still see some cues from the Granpasso being employed on this new model which include the steel-trellis frame. Now, it’s not the same exact frame that we got on the Granpasso but the construction method is the same with some more modern trimmings like a case swingarm, and a mono-shock with a linkage. We also see an upside-down fork, dual calipers, and a 19-inch front wheel.

As for the power output of the engine, the old Bialbero CorsaCorta engine made about 132 horsepower which is about par for the course in the adventure-touring segment. However, we also have to consider that Moto Morini will be wading into dangerous waters with this new model as BMW, Ducati, KTM, Honda, and others have their own big adventurers already. It’s safe to assume that Moto Morini will price its big adventurer a lot lower than the competition.