Despite order books that suggested Bimota would be turning out 500 units per year – a huge number for the tiny firm, particularly given the high price of the bike – in fact only 185 of the original, fuel-injected V-Dues were produced
in 1999 built 26 carburetted, 91kW ‘Trofeo’ versions of the V-Due for a one-make race series.
In a bankruptcy sale in 2003 a new group of investors bought the Bimota company, but the V-Due project – including the intellectual property, all the remaining stocks of unsold bikes and the ones that Bimota had bought back – was sold separately to former Bimota engineer Piero Caronni. He created the 2003 ‘Evoluzione’ version of the bike, with carbs, and later the ‘Evoluzione 04’ in 2004, with an extra 7.5kW. In total, 141 Evoluzione and Evoluzione 04 models were made, and Caronni also offered a service to convert original injected bikes to Evoluzione spec.
As a last hurrah, Caronni’s company, V-Due SRL, created the 2005 Edizione Finale. This was a track-only version making as much as 97kW with a fully sorted carb-fed version of the engine.
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