Unveiled at the third international Concours d’Elegance Chantilly Arts & Elegance, the F4Z is the first “Atelier” motorbike (designer/artisan craftsman) motorcycle to be created by the legendary Italian Zagato design studio.
The only remaining Italian coachbuilding company to be independent and still in the hands of its founder’s family, Zagato shaped the F4Z based on the standard mechanics of the MV Agusta F4 as a one-off piece for a Japanese entrepreneur - a collector of Zagato cars as well as Italian motorbikes.
The F4Z’s bodywork was designed and engineered by the Zagato team and built in aluminium and carbon fibre. It consists of a limited number of relatively large panels: this is described by MV Agusta as “the characteristic that, in the motorcar world, sets apart collectibles from mass produced automobiles”.
MV say that compared to the production F4, the F4Z features an entirely different bodywork. Some parts had to be adapted and re-engineered, others fully replaced by components that were made specially, like intake manifolds, fuel tank, battery, exhaust system.
Founded by Ugo Zagato in 1919, right from its start the company specialised in light 2 door/2 seat bodies (coupe or spider). The F4Z is described as representing a “digression beyond the car universe, their traditional field of expression. Nowadays Zagato is a modern Total Design Centre and coachbuilding atelier, able to blend and balance the most advanced engineering technologies, the use of innovative materials and the traditional workshop production procedures”.
The design team of the Zagato Atelier had to tackle the challenge of creating a bike that would interpret the lifestyle of the customer, a young Japanese businessman, president of a holding company with interests in the fashion and publishing sectors.
The starting point was the notion that a motorbike expresses its owner’s lifestyle a lot more than a car. Therefore, it was essential to know and understand the character, passions and wishes of the person to whom the bike was destined.
“The collector or investor who turns to the Zagato Atelier requesting an exclusive piece is certainly someone with a strong passion. The love for bikes of the client dates back to the Eighties, when he bought his first motorcycle and started to customise it with his own hands.
“It was his visceral passion that stimulated the designers’ creativity. He didn’t want anything modern, fashionable, but something that could instead keep its value and appeal. What he wanted was a motorbike that wasn’t comparable to any other, that was classic, but always up-to-date and with a timeless design”.
www.zagato.it
mvagusta.com
