New bikes from Barrus

Barrus, importer of Malaguti, Reiju, Moto-Hispania and Moto-Roma, has unveiled new bikes and ambitious plans for the next year.

The firm outlined its plans on Wednesday, February 9, and gave motorcyclenews.com the chance to ride the new Malaguti SpiderMax GT500 scooter, Drakon 50, PhantomMax 125, plus 50cc and 125cc geared machines from Rieju and Moto-Roma, the Urban Quad range and even a 150cc four-wheeled buggy.

In the coming months the ranges will be expanded by a series of new Riejus which will be built by Chinese firm Zongshen and use the Yamaha YZ250 and 450cc engines. Currently at the prototype stage, the bikes have already been displayed at the Munich motorcycle show in September. They should be available later this year. Enduro and motocross versions will be available first and a road-going supermotard will follow.

Also on the way is the 200cc MRX200, which will retail at just £1195 when it arrives in limited numbers in mid-February 2005. It’s not for road use and aimed at those choosing the gentler end of off-road riding.

There are also new 125cc road bikes including the GP125 and Mustang 125 at £1395, and the RDG125 at £1495.

Barrus aim to move into the mid-capacity market over the coming years with a potential SV650 rival.

It also plans to do more to promote the Malguti range and will bring in the air-cooled Firefox F15 in March, and new cheaper air-cooled Ducati team replicas in MotoGP and WSB schemes.

www.motorcyclenews.com was invited to test much of the 2005 range – to see what happened, click here.