Motorcycle specifications Benelli400 Imperiale 2019 When you look at a past...

Presented at EICMA 2016, this 400 Impériale is due for release mid-year. After abandoning the muscular sports and roadster niches, Benelli has turned to vintage with a pretty little Leoncino. It's an almost intrepid galloper that we could see playing in the avenues. Still in the retro vein, but in a more consensual style, the Sino-Italian brand has entered the Bonneville, V7 and Bullet clan with this Imperiale.

With its old-English look, the machine hits the bull's-eye. It has to be said that this style is particularly fashionable. Everything is designed to make you hesitate: the spoked rims, chrome mudguards, sausage pot, spring-mounted saddle, crude Eastern-style muffler attachment, the look of the crankcases, the engine fins....
In short, the Imperiale wants to take us back in time. To the era of the first Imperiale of the '60s? Which wasn't really a Benelli, but a Motobi. This brand was created by one of the family's members, Giuseppe Benelli, following a conflict such as so many stories revolve around. The 400 is thus a distant cousin of the 125 of yesteryear.

Enough of chinoiseries, let's get down to... Well, no, we're right in the middle of Chinese. Powered by a 373.5 cm3 single-cylinder, the Benelli offers the performance of a machine from the last century, or even the beginning. Its 19.7 hp will allow you to swing your hips, play the hazelnut and provoke the 125s. The 3 mkg of torque will allow for a certain effort, without the fuss.
Mounted on a double-cradle steel frame, the 400 Imperiale is equipped with a 41 mm fork, a 300 mm front brake disc with double-piston caliper + a 240 mm rear disc, ABS, 19" and 18" wheels and a perfectly classic headlight-counter-linkage assembly. With this look, you'd almost be tempted to believe it.

The Benelli Imperiale 400 won't have an easy time of it in this segment. It will have to come with a tempting price tag, because the only way to compete with the class tenors is on its name, its chimera and its price.

M.B - Manufacturer's photos