Aprilia Spare Parts

Aprilia’s story begins not with roaring engines or chequered flags, but with quiet necessity.

In the ashes of post-war Italy, 1945, a man named Alberto Beggio opened a small bicycle workshop in the Veneto town of Noale. He called it Aprilia — after the nearby town — and for the first two decades the company built nothing more glamorous than pedal-powered transport. Yet within that modest workshop lay the seeds of something far bolder: a restless curiosity and a belief that speed, design and mechanical precision could coexist beautifully.

By the late 1960s, Alberto’s son Ivano Beggio had taken over the business. Unlike his father, Ivano was not content to make bicycles forever. In 1968, he rolled out Aprilia’s first 50 cc prototype — a simple, two-stroke commuter that would spark the company’s obsession with engines. It wasn’t the machine itself that mattered so much as what it symbolised: Aprilia was now a motorcycle manufacturer.

The early years were scrappy and hands-on. Mechanics shared coffee-stained benches with race riders, sketching improvements on napkins. Models like the Colibrì and Scarabeo 50 gave teenagers their first taste of freedom, while the off-road Scarabeo 125 brought the company its first taste of reputation. In 1974, Aprilia entered competition with its 125 cc motocross bike — a hand-built machine piloted by Ivan Alborghetti, who went on to take multiple Italian titles. The victories gave Noale confidence. Ivano’s small workshop became a hive of two-stroke innovation, driven by the intoxicating idea that anything was possible if you could build it lighter and rev it higher.

By the 1980s, Aprilia’s ambitions stretched far beyond the dirt. They entered the road market with bikes like the St125, Tuareg, and Pegaso, and — crucially — began collaborating with Rotax of Austria for engines. It was a pragmatic partnership: Aprilia provided the imagination and chassis know-how, Rotax the reliable powerplants. This alliance would define the brand’s next two decades.

Then came the 1990s — Aprilia’s golden era of sport.

The AF1 Sintesi, RS125, and the now-legendary RS250 Chesterfield turned the company into a serious player among European youth riders. The RS250, powered by a tuned Suzuki RGV engine, became a cult classic — razor sharp, impossibly light, its twin expansion chambers screaming through every Italian mountain pass. Aprilia’s design language matured too: angular, aggressive, unapologetically Italian. These bikes didn’t just look fast; they felt like rebellion on wheels.

In racing, Aprilia became a giant-killer. Their small 125 cc and 250 cc Grand Prix teams routinely humiliated the bigger factories. Riders like Max Biaggi, Valentino Rossi, Loris Capirossi, and Marco Melandri all cut their teeth on Aprilia machines, learning the delicate art of momentum and corner speed. By the turn of the millennium, Aprilia had collected more than 50 world titles, proving that ingenuity could beat budgets.

1998 marked another leap: the RSV Mille, Aprilia’s first big-bore superbike. With a 998 cc Rotax V-twin, aluminium twin-spar chassis, and the signature Aprilia blend of intellect and aggression, the RSV Mille was a declaration — Noale could play in the big leagues. The Mille evolved into the RSV 1000 R and Tuono Fighter, bringing the brand’s race DNA to the streets.

But racing is expensive, and Aprilia’s ambitions outpaced its balance sheet. The early 2000s brought financial turbulence, even as they unveiled the radical RS Cube MotoGP prototype — an inline-triple developed with Cosworth that was years ahead of its time, boasting ride-by-wire long before it became industry standard. The RS Cube’s performance was wild, unpredictable, and at times dangerous — but it proved Aprilia’s technical daring.

In 2004, the Piaggio Group acquired Aprilia, along with its stablemates Moto Guzzi and Laverda. For some, it was the end of an era; for others, the lifeline Aprilia needed to survive. Under Piaggio, Aprilia regained financial stability and continued pushing engineering boundaries. The RSV4 of 2009, with its compact 65° V4 engine, re-established Aprilia as a performance powerhouse. Max Biaggi’s 2010 World Superbike Championship win on the RSV4 was poetic justice — the small factory that once built bicycles now ruled the world stage.

Today, Aprilia continues to blend cutting-edge engineering with Italian emotion.

The 660 platform — RS 660, Tuono 660, and Tuareg 660 — distils everything the marque has learned: balance, lightness, and that distinct Noale precision. In MotoGP, Aprilia has gone from underdog to podium regular, its RS-GP machine reflecting the same relentless curiosity that defined the Beggio family workshop.

Aprilia’s journey is one of reinvention — a brand that started with pedals, found its soul in two-strokes, and matured into a global symbol of intelligence and daring. It’s the story of a company that never stopped asking what if? — and then built the answer out of aluminium, fire, and faith.