Incoming: Benelli's New Naked 750 Twin

Benelli occupies a strange space in the motorcycling consciousness. On one hand it's an evocative name with an illustrious history. On the other it's struggled to make a big impact on the market in the 20 years since it was revived by Andrea Merloni. Showing promise in the late 90s with the beautiful Tornado triple, Benelli played out the all-too-familiar story of financial problems before being sold to Chinese firm Qianjiang in 2005. While that deal secured the firm's future, it left questions over exactly what a Benelli is. Are you getting a real-deal Italian bike or a rebadged Chinese machine?

The answer is somewhere between the two. Some Benelli models, including the four-cylinder 600cc machines, are Qianjiang bikes sold under various names around the world. Others, like the large-capacity triples, are purely Italian creations. The latest generation, like the pretty Leoncino scrambler, show the firm is finally finding a balance between the benefits of Chinese finance and Italian style. And that brings us to this, the forthcoming Benelli 750 twin. It's a machine that's taken more than a decade to reach production and been completely rethought since its original conception, but later this year it's due to be officially revealed in production form.

These pictures show what looks like a showroom-ready version of the bike, carrying ‘750GS’ badging. They were taken in China, where most of the recent development has been underway. Videos have also emerged on the Chinese equivalent of YouTube showing prototypes under test.

The 750’s story starts more than a decade ago, at around the time Qianiang was first considering investing in the company. Benelli sliced a cylinder off its 1130cc triple to create a parallel twin of just over 750cc and initially unveiled the result back in 2006 as the Due 756 concept bike. This creation used the engine to provide the majority of its structural strength, with a cast aluminium upper frame to hold the steering head and seat subframe. It was shown again several times over the next six years and often spied testing near Benelli’s Italian factory, but eventually disappeared without ever reaching production.

Last year at the EICMA show, Benelli again displayed a 750cc parallel twin engine, looking very similar to the Due 756's motor. Shortly afterwards we revealed photos of a styling model for the bike this engine was destined for. It appears that the styling has been virtually unaltered for the near-finished bike seen here. There's a slight tweak to the shape of the exhaust silencer and the footrests have been redesigned. The headlight design is also more refined, and there's a new full-colour TFT instrument display. A two-tone seat and brushed alloy inserts (likely plastic with a brushed alloy finish) on the seat unit give a classy look.

Original claims for the Due 756 gave the engine a claimed 97hp at 10,000rpm, which is believable, along with 47ft-lb of torque at 8000rpm. While tighter modern emissions rules might conspire to sap some of that performance, more modern fuel injection and engine management should be able to claw it back again. The design, with its trellis frame and clean styling, clearly owes some inspiration to the Ducati Monster. The cheapest versions of that bike may be its closest rival, although we’d expect the Chinese-made Benelli to be somewhat less expensive. Benelli says that these pictures aren’t official releases and that the bike seen in them isn’t necessarily representative of the final version. It confirmed that it’s scheduled to be launched ‘soon’ and will use the 750cc engine shown at EICMA last year.