Photography by Vishnu G Haarinath
With a rich history of making fast motorcycles, it did not come as surprise for us when we got our hands on the most affordable Aprilia available in India, the SR 150, to be any different. It was quick, nimble, great looking and boasted of all the qualities an Aprilia should have. Piaggio themselves didn’t expect such a demand for the SR 150 and the scooter has been selling like hot cakes in the market.
Piaggio though had a surprise in store awaiting fans who wanted a bit more (I seriously didn’t think you could get any more) oomph. Behold the Aprilia SR 150 Race.
Visually, the SR 150 Race retains the same bodywork as its standard edition but now comes with the livery that is also found on Aprilia’s 2016 MotoGP contender – the RS-GP16. The Italian tri-colore livery looks really neat on the SR 150 Race with the silver accents denoting the classy nature of the scooter. The alloys now come in Alluro Rosso colour with the front disc brake caliper getting a golden paint. Personally, the livery feels bit too overdone to me but I would love to spec my long-term SR 150 with the red alloys and golden caliper. There will be many like me who would love to have certain visual elements or the entire theme on their existing SR 150s, but sadly that won’t be the case.
What Piaggio would do for you however is they will help you transform the standard SR 150’s CVT transmission to the Race’s version (yes, on your existing SR 150 as well). The retuned CVT makes the racy moto-scooter quickly climb through the numbers, something the standard edition was already proficient at. But this Race does the trick especially till 65kmph. Piaggio state that the with the retuned CVT, the scooter is a second quicker in a quarter-mile.
Considering it is only a bump of three grand to the pricing from the regular SR 150, the Race version will certainly have takers. I certainly would like to get my hands on the Race for a longer period and perhaps get a better perspective once we put both the editions head-to-head.