Aprilia brings the winglets to the streets with the RSV4 RF LE

Bruno Gomes

April 23, 2018

The new RSV4 RF Limited Edition comes with aerodynamic winglets and a special livery

Making the best of the MotoGP round in Texas, Aprilia showed a new version of the RSV4 RF superbike at the Circuit of The Americas. The Noale factory created this Limited Edition, only 125 units will be built and are reserved for the North American market, and the best of all is that this will become the first road legal motorcycle making use of aerodynamic winglets!

Aprilia Racing already knows what aerodynamic winglets can do in the behavior of a motorcycle, especially on a racetrack with the MotoGP prototype RS-GP, and taking advantage of that knowledge, the racing department in Noale developed a road legal motorcycle with the same kind of aerodynamic package that we can see on MotoGP bikes.

This isn’t the first time Aprilia uses the winglets on the RSV4. If you remember correctly, Aprilia further developed the Factory Works program late last year by introducing a special RSV4 Factory Works which already had the winglets attached in the side fairings.

Aprilia says the aerodynamic winglets aren’t really all that functional. Do you think they look good?

But that bike was only for racetrack use.

The RSV4 RF Limited Edition version is basically the same motorcycle we already know from 2017, but on the side fairings there are aerodynamic winglets made in carbon fiber.

Also important to notice, is that the RSV4 RF Limited Edition sets itself apart from the “normal” RF version by using a special livery, which Aprilia says is an interpretation of the Loris Reggiani’s 250GP race livery, where in 1987 the Italian rider gave Aprilia its first race win in a world championship.

The RSV4 RF Limited Edition is the first road legal motorcycle to have MotoGP style winglets

Aprilia says that at this time these winglets won’t do much in terms of road performance, they’re not functional, and they’ve built this bike just to create a bigger connection between the RSV4 RF and the RS-GP prototype they use in MotoGP.

What does Aprilia mean when they say that “at this time winglets aren’t made to be functional”?

According to rumors, Aprilia is developing a new generation of the RSV4 superbike, and when that motorcycle arrives, probably in 2019, it will have a completely new and radical design with this type of aerodynamic winglets incorporated in it, and those won’t be just for show!