Born in the Desert. The Aprilia Tuareg 660 Is the Ultimate Adventure Motorcycle You Might Ever Need

• 80 hp from a rally-tuned 659cc parallel-twin engine
• 240 mm fully adjustable long-travel suspension
• Africa Eco Race-inspired off-road DNA
• Full APRC electronics suite for advanced rider control
• Lightweight design setting a new benchmark in the segment

Aprilia Tuareg 660: The middleweight adventure motorcycle segment is the most competitive, most rapidly evolving and most rider-relevant category in the modern motorcycle market — a space where buyers demand machines capable of handling a weekly commute on Monday, a fast mountain road on Saturday and a gravel trail on Sunday without requiring a compromise on any of those fronts. Most motorcycles in this class deliver two of those three capabilities convincingly. Building one machine that genuinely excels across all three simultaneously — with the suspension specification of a true off-road machine, the road manners of a sport-oriented motorcycle and the electronic sophistication of a premium European manufacturer — is the engineering challenge that defines the category’s ceiling. The Aprilia Tuareg 660 does not merely reach that ceiling. In its 2025 specification, updated for Euro 5+ compliance and joined by the new Rally variant derived directly from the competition machine that won the Africa Eco Race, it redefines where the ceiling sits.

The Engine: Dakar Character in a 659cc Package

Aprilia’s 659cc parallel-twin engine is already one of the most celebrated middleweight powerplants in contemporary motorcycling, known from the RS 660 sportsbike and Tuono 660 naked for its free-revving character, strong midrange delivery and mechanical refinement that far exceeds its displacement class. For the Tuareg, the same fundamental architecture has been recalibrated with purpose-designed camshaft profiles — reduced lift and duration relative to the road-going versions — to shift the power emphasis away from top-end aggression and toward the low-to-mid-range torque availability that adventure and trail riding genuinely demands. The result is 80 horsepower at 9,250 rpm paired with 51.6 lb-ft of torque arriving at 6,500 rpm — figures that place the Tuareg ahead of the Yamaha Ténéré 700 in headline power output while delivering that output in a manner that feels more tractable, more progressive and more forgiving across the varied throttle inputs of real-world riding.

For 2025, the engine receives enlarged 52mm throttle bodies — up from the previous 48mm specification — improving airflow and combustion efficiency while ensuring the power output is fully preserved under the stricter Euro 5+ emissions regime. A new rare-earth generator reduces rotational inertia, producing a crisper throttle response and a lighter-feeling engine character that experienced riders will notice immediately. The six-speed gearbox incorporates a slipper clutch as standard, reducing rear wheel hop during aggressive downshifting and lightening the clutch pull to a level that makes heavy traffic and technical trail riding considerably less fatiguing over a long day in the saddle.

Suspension and Chassis: Where the Tuareg Separates Itself

If a single specification separates the Tuareg 660 from the majority of its middleweight competitors, it is the suspension. Both front and rear units offer 240 millimetres of travel — a figure that exceeds the BMW R 1250 GS Adventure and the Honda Africa Twin, and is matched in the middleweight class only by KTM’s considerably more expensive 890 Adventure R. The fully adjustable 43mm inverted Kayaba fork and the Kayaba piggyback-reservoir rear shock — both adjustable for compression, rebound and spring preload — provide the range of tuning that allows a single motorcycle to be set up conservatively for loaded touring, firmly for sport road riding and appropriately softened for genuine trail use. That capability in a machine at this price point is, by the segment’s established standards, extraordinary.

The frame is a tubular steel trellis with aluminium brackets — a deliberate departure from the aluminium perimeter frame of the RS and Tuono, chosen specifically because a steel trellis provides the compliance and vibration absorption characteristics that long-distance adventure riding demands. The result is a machine whose ride quality over rough surfaces is considerably more forgiving than its off-road suspension specification might suggest. The 21-inch front wheel and 18-inch rear — shod in Pirelli Scorpion Rally STR tyres that balance on-road stability with genuine trail capability — sit at the correct dimensions for both confident gravel handling and stable highway cruising.

Dry weight is 187 kilograms — approximately 412 pounds — a figure that represents a meaningful advantage over most competitors in the class and a staggering one against large-displacement adventure bikes. For a rider tackling technical terrain or managing a loaded bike through tight mountain switchbacks, that weight advantage translates directly into confidence, manageability and reduced fatigue across a full riding day.

Electronics: APRC Sophistication Engineered for Adventure

Aprilia’s APRC — Aprilia Performance Ride Control — electronics suite is the most comprehensive standard-fit electronics package available on any motorcycle at this price point, and for 2025 it has been refined for adventure-specific deployment in ways that demonstrate genuine engineering intelligence rather than simply checkbox feature accumulation.

Four riding modes — Urban, Explore, Off-Road and Individual — provide pre-configured setups for the Tuareg’s primary use environments, with the Individual mode allowing complete customisation of all parameters to match a specific rider’s preferences, terrain and load. Traction control operates across four levels of intervention, from the aggressive street-optimised Urban calibration to the minimal Off-Road setting that provides just enough electronic safety without interfering with the deliberate wheel slip that technically demanding trail riding occasionally requires. Engine braking adjustment across three levels allows riders to dial in the deceleration character they prefer — an important capability on descents where the wrong level of engine braking can unsettle an already-challenging line through loose terrain.

ABS can be deactivated on the rear wheel independently for off-road use — a calibration that experienced trail riders will immediately appreciate and beginners will benefit from as they develop — or switched off entirely at both wheels for advanced off-road situations. Cruise control is standard equipment, a feature whose value for long-distance road sections becomes apparent within the first extended highway stretch. The five-inch colour TFT display provides clear readout of all parameters, riding mode selections and navigation connectivity depending on specification level.

The Africa Eco Race and the Rally Variant

Aprilia’s commitment to the Tuareg 660’s credentials as a genuinely capable off-road machine is not expressed solely in the standard model’s specification. In January 2024, the Tuareg 660 race version, developed in partnership with GCorse and ridden by Jacopo Cerutti, won the Africa Eco Race outright — a multi-stage desert rally that covers thousands of kilometres across North Africa and finishes at Dakar’s Lac Rose. That victory is not a marketing footnote. It is the validation of a chassis, engine and suspension architecture that was designed to handle those conditions from its first day of development.

For 2025, that competition experience is available in production form as the Tuareg 660 Rally — a variant priced at $13,799 in the United States that retains the standard model’s engine specification while fitting stiffer, straight-rate Kayaba springs, an SC-Project titanium exhaust, a taller seat height of 35.9 inches and a more aggressive engine map derived directly from Cerutti’s competition feedback. For riders whose primary interest lies in more demanding off-road terrain, the Rally delivers the closest production motorcycle to a genuine rally-raid machine currently available in the middleweight class.

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2025 Aprilia Tuareg 660 Full Specifications

Why the Tuareg 660 Stands Above Its Rivals

The middleweight adventure segment has no shortage of competent motorcycles. The Yamaha Ténéré 700 offers accessible, proven durability at a lower price. The Honda Africa Twin provides larger-displacement comfort and Honda’s legendary reliability at a higher weight and cost. The KTM 890 Adventure R delivers greater outright off-road performance at a substantially higher price. The Tuareg 660 sits at the intersection of all those attributes — more off-road capable than the Honda, more road-refined than the KTM, more electronically sophisticated than both the Yamaha and Honda, and lighter than every one of them. At $12,499 in the United States, it commands a modest premium over the Japanese competition that its suspension specification, electronics depth and competition-derived engineering philosophy comprehensively justify. For the rider who genuinely wants to do it all — from the morning commute to the desert trail and everything in between — the Aprilia Tuareg 660 is not simply a strong choice. In 2025, it is the definitive one.