CarBrandLogos archive · Aprilia · 1986

ApriliaAF1

A learner-legal two-stroke dressed as a grand prix bike.

Photo: Joost J. Bakker from IJmuiden · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Aprilia history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Aprilia AF1, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Aprilia built its reputation in the 1980s on small-capacity racing, and the AF1 was the road-going expression of it. Introduced in 1986 and sold until 1993, it was a fully faired sports bike built around liquid-cooled two-stroke singles of 50 to 125 cc, most supplied by Rotax in Austria, with three or six speeds and chain final drive.

Aprilia AF1 108 · XDVRACE · CC BY-SA 4.0

Design and engineering

The proportions were the selling point. In Italy and much of southern Europe, licensing rules meant riders spent their first years on 125s, and Aprilia gave them a machine with a proper twin-spar frame, clip-on bars and race-derived bodywork rather than a scaled-down commuter. Replica paint schemes reinforced the link to the company's grand prix programme.

In production

It replaced the AS125R and gave way to the RS125 in 1992, which took the same idea and refined it into one of the best-known small motorcycles in Europe.

At a glance