Superbike

Today marks the end of the V-Twin superbike era, with Ducati announcing its 2018 Panigale will run a counter-rotating 90-degree V4 engine. Fear not, though, the Panigale V4 is the most powerful bike ever in the superbike class, with a head-spinning list of electronic rider aids.

Kawasaki's performance in World Superbike Racing has been so good of recent times that it's embarrassing. So what do you change when your bike has just won three straight championships, with more fastest laps and pole positions than any other marque? ​The answer is, not much.

With a complete overhaul for 2017 and a peak of 202 horsepower, the big Gixxer is well and truly back in the pantheon of the world's greatest superbikes. But Suzuki has gone to great lengths to beef up the midrange and make this thing dominate the road like never before.

It’s been known for several months that Ducati plans to replace its existing V2 superbikes with a new V4 generation, and the unveiling of the Panigale R Final Edition has just confirmed it. The high-end road-legal superbike blends the race-spec Panigale R with the rare and collectible Superleggera.

The HP4 Race that BMW teased at the EICMA 2016 show is now going into a limited production run of 750 hand assembled units, complete with all carbon frame and wheels and ​a 158 kW ​power plant.

The van ... possibly the most versatile piece of transportation man has ever crafted. We've seen vans as mobile living quarters, four-wheeled offices, and even motorized raw bars – in the past two months alone. Now, Vauxhall shows a van that works all week before racing bikes on the weekend.

Norton has finally released details on its exquisite V4 RR superbike. The gorgeous polished tube frame houses a 1200cc, 200-plus horsepower V4 motor with all the latest electronics, and along with many special touches there's carbon everywhere from the fairings to the fuel tank and the rims.

It's been 25 years since Honda sent the motorcycle world into an ever-escalating nuclear arms race with the original Fireblade. Now, the flagship superbike gets a 10-horsepower boost, drops 33 pounds and goes fully electronic to put it back in the hunt with the top dogs in the open class.

Ducati has released its most powerful motorcycle ever, in a package that's so light it would need to add ballast to race in World Superbike. The extraordinary 1299 Superleggera packs 215 horses, weighs just 344 lb (156 kg) and leaps to the top of our Christmas wishlist at just US$80,000.

Suzuki unveiled at Intermot its latest sportbike bearing the iconic GSX-R logo. The new GSX-R1000 brings variable-valve timing to the game, in a brand-new package that incorporates all the essential features of the highly competitive superbike class, escorted by an even higher-spec R version.

In 1992 the CBR900RR Fireblade changed the superbike game, but a quarter century later Honda’s production racing icon appears to be lagging behind the competition. The 2017 CBR1000RR SP and SP2 aim to turn the tables both on the road and the race track with a host of upgrades on the existing model.

British manufacturer Norton Motorcycles has officially confirmed the arrival of the new model that has been eagerly expected for more than a year. The company will finally unveil in November a production sport bike with a brand new 1200 cc V4 engine and a tubular aluminum frame, both built in-house.