Aprilia Tuareg 660

One look at the Aprilia Tuareg 660 is enough to affirm its existence as a thoroughbred adventure tourer. The tall and sleek stance and rugged design elements do give the Tuareg 660 a clear identity as a motorcycle designed and engineered for off-road terrains.

The Aprilia Tuareg 660 looks tall when viewed from the front, with the motorcycle getting a triple-light arrangement for its headlamps, all of which offer full-LED illumination. The side edges of the side headlamps come with V-shaped daytime running LEDs over them, which further make the fascia look modern and captivating in appearance. This minimalist headlamp is further accompanied by a huge, tall and transparent windscreen, which is the primary reason that makes it look tall from the front. The front wheel of the Tuareg 660 also looks comprehensive and purposeful with its large protective area around the lower part of the front forks.

The purposeful look of the Aprilia Tuareg 660 continues in its side profile too, where the high-mounted fuel tank of the motorcycle is flanked by wide panels on either side. These panels and the widely-designed fuel tank make the motorcycle muscular in appearance. The fuel tank stretches down towards the middle of the subframe, which is partially exposed and is finished in a gunmetal grey theme, along with the engine, main frame, wide engine cowl and the tall-mounted exhaust pipe.

Adding a more functional look to the overall design of the Aprilia Tuareg 660 are the rugged-looking tread blocks of the off-road tyres and sleek and minimalist design for the tail section, that flows all the way to the back, ending with a tiny LED tail lamp that has a raked look from the top. Like a traditional adventure tourer, the Aprilia Tuareg 660 also has a long seat that is tapered from the rider’s edge and a high-placed handlebar with crash guards ahead of the palm grips. The Aprilia Tuareg 660 also gets a 5-inch full-TFT instrument console that is different from the other 660cc series motorcycles from Aprilia and offers off-road specific data on display too.

In addition to the heavily tweaked engine, the Aprilia Tuareg 660 also gets an altogether different mechanical setup compared to the RS 660 and Tuono 660. The Tuareg 660 has a steel-tubed main frame with a built-in subframe, with the former getting aluminium connection plates with the engine. The Kayaba-sourced suspension setup, comprising 43mm upside-down front forks with 240mm travel and an aluminium swingarm and mono-shock with 240mm travel, is fully adjustable at both ends.

The long travel for the suspension setup allows the Aprilia Tuareg 660 to have effortless rideability over off-road terrains. Adding more effortlessness to the off-road riding ability of the Aprilia Tuareg 660 is the set of tyres it comes equipped with – 90/90-21 front and 150/70 R18 rear, with both offering off-road tread blocks. The Aprilia Tuareg 660 is equipped with 300mm dual discs at the front and a 260mm single disc at the rear for braking.

Powering the Aprilia Tuareg 660 is the same four-stroke, liquid-cooled, parallel-twin, 659cc engine, which powers the other 660cc motorcycles from Aprilia – the RS 660 and Tuono 660. However, in the Aprilia Tuareg 660, the engine is in an entirely different state of tune and produces a maximum power output of 80 PS and a maximum torque output of 70 Nm. The engine has been tweaked to achieve a boosted low and mid-range performance, to suit the adventure touring characteristics of the Tuareg 660.

The Aprilia Tuareg 660 is impressively equipped with a host of safety features, the list of which includes a dual-channel ABS, bi-directional quick-shifter, four riding modes (Rain, Road, User 1 and User 2), traction control, engine braking control, engine maps and cruise control.

The Aprilia Tuareg 660 is a purposeful adventure tourer with a functional design, a torquey engine with a healthy mid-range and full-blown adventure-spec hardware for the suspension, tyres and brakes, which makes it one of the best go-anywhere motorcycles in the middleweight motorcycle category.