MV Agusta F4 2018 — Specifications

Eight years without a major overhaul, and yet the silhouette still turns heads in the circuit parking lot. The MV Agusta F4 moves through the seasons like those Italian actresses who don't need surgery to remain desirable. Varese chose to preserve its icon rather than reinvent it, settling for bringing the engine in line with Euro4 and enriching the electronics over successive model years. The result: faced with a Panigale V4 or a ZX-10R that are more recent technically, the Italian beauty plays the personality card rather than that of the unbeatable spec sheet. And she's right to do so, because her charisma compensates for what her age reveals on the stopwatch.

Mentally pick up an F4 RR, strip away the Öhlins equipment, erase five or six horsepower, swap the top-shelf forged wheels for more conventional versions, trade the Brembo M50 calipers for M4s, and you have the base F4. Put like that, you'd almost feel sorry for her. Wrong. With 195 horsepower at 13,400 rpm and 110.8 Nm of torque at 9,600 rpm, the Corsa Corta inline-four still delivers enough to light up the rear wheel on corner exit. The short 79 x 50.9 mm bore and the 13.4:1 compression ratio explain this appetite for revs. The MV Agusta F4 price comes in at 20,990 euros, barely more than a well-equipped Japanese sportbike, while the MV Agusta F4 RR price climbs to an entirely different level. For those hesitating, hunting down a used MV Agusta F4 remains a credible option, provided you check the camshaft maintenance and the condition of the gearbox.

This 998 cc engine sits in the traditional CrMo steel tubular trellis, bolted to aluminum side plates, an arrangement that has been the brand's signature since the F4 750 designed by Tamburini. The electronic package, for its part, is anything but dated. MVICS, ride-by-wire, four maps including a fully customizable one, eight-level traction control, anti-wheelie, gyroscopes and accelerometers chatting in real time with the ECU, standard quickshifter and Bosch 9MP ABS in Race mode. The 50 mm Marzocchi upside-down fork and the triple-adjustable Sachs monoshock aren't the heavy artillery of an F4 RC, but they soak up the attacks of an experienced track rider without flinching.

The problem, because there is one, is called the scales. 291 kg dry is heavy for a modern hypersport, and the low handlebars combined with an 830 mm seat height impose a back workout that long-distance riders will quickly abandon. The 1,430 mm wheelbase guarantees stability at 291 km/h at the end of the straight, but the bike demands to be ridden with conviction to string together tight corners. The 17-liter tank and the radical riding position rule out long-distance travel from the outset. This MV Agusta F4 1000 targets the Sunday track rider, the aesthete looking for a rolling sculpture, not the buyer of a versatile MV Agusta F4 2021 or a reinvented MV Agusta F4 2023.

The audience is therefore clear. Experienced riders, fans of transalpine mechanics, collectors eyeing the special editions like the MV Agusta F4 Senna, the MV Agusta F4 Claudio or the MV Agusta F4 Lewis Hamilton. Beginners will look elsewhere, and long-distance riders too. What remains is a demanding, loud, stiff, sumptuous sportbike that turns every track session into a declaration of love to Italian mechanical art. In a market saturated with sanitized four-cylinders, the F4 retains the fragrance of an era when you bought a motorcycle for what it said, not just for what it clocked.