Is this the new Aprilia RS660 Supersport machine?

EICMA 2018 saw Aprilia pull the covers off a rather surprising motorcycle, called the RS660. Introduced with much fanfare, the machine was touted as a new supersport machine, ready to take on the likes of Kawasaki and Yamaha on the roads and the racetracks.

Fast forward a few months and we are beginning to see the first signs of life from the machine as these patent images claiming to be the new bike have begun surfacing on social media. And the good news is the bike looks to have changed little from the original concept we saw in Italy last November.

The bike is powered by a 660cc parallel twin that’s derived from the RSV4 unit – it is the front two cylinders of the V4 – which was chosen above all else to allow for compact packaging of the machine. The suspension is provided by Sachs now, not Ohlins as seen on the concept machine, while the rest of the bikes aesthetic and technical aspects seem to have remained fairly unchanged.

With the bikes 660cc capacity and twin cylinder layout, it’d seem a natural fit at TT course alongside bikes like the Paton and Kawasaki, both kawasaki ER650 powered machines, although TT tules would mean the capacity would need to be clipped at 650cc.