Benelli Tornado 900 Tre RS
With Phil Aynsley
Benelli’s proud history of motorcycle manufacturing, after being founded in 1911 and its first bike appearing in 1921, came to a halt in 1988 under Alejandro de Tomaso’s management when the company was merged with Moto Guzzi.
There was a short-lived attempt at reviving the brand in 1989, manufacturing scooters, but it wasn’t until 1995 that a completely revised company, under Andrea Merloni, took shape.
The first product of this new regime was debuted in 1999 but production didn’t begin until 2002.
The Tornado Tre 900 sports bike was originally designed to form the basis of a World Superbike campaign and indeed Aussie racer Peter Goddard was a part of the development team.
The Tre was a 898cc triple that had the goal of matching Ducati and MV Agusta’s top line sports bikes.
Apart from the somewhat unusual, at the time, choice of a triple-cylinder engine, the defining feature of the bike was its under-seat radiator and its exhaust fans.
This placement was necessitated by the motor being mounted as close to the front wheel as possible. One negative outcome from this arrangement was the high seat-height with consequent high weight load on the rider’s wrists.
Early production bikes suffered from some reliability problems such as poor fuel mapping and clutch/alternator failures but these were eventually sorted.
The 133 hp (140 claimed) motor had plenty of torque and could propel the 195 kg machine to a top speed of 268 km/h.
The LE version quickly followed and was the model that the WSBK racer was to be based on. 150 were built and they featured carbon fibre tank and bodywork, magnesium wheels and Öhlins suspension.
The Tre RS (pictured here) was released in 2004 and, apart from its red/black paint scheme, featured a more powerful motor (143 hp at 11,500 rpm), upgraded suspension, OZ wheels, Brembo radial calipers and added carbon-fibre parts. The steering geometry was also tweaked. We believe a total of eight RS models were sold in Australia out of the 365 RS machines produced.Â
After Benelli was acquired by China’s Qianjiang Group in 2005 various capacity triples, including 1130 cc versions produced from 2008 which continued to be built up until 2012.
Benelli Tornado 900 Tre RS Specifications
- Engine – 898 cc, triple-cylinder, four-stroke
- Bore x Stroke – 88 x 49.2 mm
- Claimed Power – 141 hp at 11,500 rpm
- Claimed Torque – 100 Nm at 8500 rpm
- Compression Ratio – 11.0:1
- Valves – Four valves per cylinder, DOHC
- Gearbox – Six speed
- Forks – 50 mm Marzocchi
- Brakes – Brembo 320 mm
- Dry Weight – 195 kg
- Seat Height – 810 mm
Today Benelli is distributed in Australia by Urban Moto Imports
