New generation of V-fours for the road?

While Ducati has shown an early version of its road-going Desmosedici, the Japanese manufacturers have been somewhat more coy, though Honda is widely expected to be the next in line.

Despite persistent rumours the Japanese company has not shown a V-five road bike, and may be holding fire until it unveils next year's racer, which is expected to be a V-four. Now this would make a lot more sense as a manufacturing proposition for the company, which has a long history of producing high-performance bikes with this engine configuration.

Assuming all this speculation is somewhere near the mark, this may be the last year we see a racing V-five.