Brian Gillen Leaves MV Agusta

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Dr. Brian Gillen has left MV Agusta and is moving to Norton. (Bruno dePrato/)

Dr. Brian Gillen has left MV Agusta where he served as chief project engineer for 15 years. During that time he proved capable of identifying and fixing the numerous problems of MV Agusta models, particularly the power units, in terms of both reliability and performance. He was able to extract the best from the 675cc three-cylinder F3 and let it safely grow to 800cc with excellent performance that made the F3 800 RR a very attractive middleweight sportbike.

Maybe the most remarkable technical achievement by Gillen was a complete revision of the 1,000cc F4 inline-four, that through its life had accumulated more reliability problems than was expected at MV Agusta. The F4 unit was almost dead when Gillen took on the challenge. He fixed all problems and made it a very powerful and solid engine. It took a lot of very hard work, but it paid off.

Gillen’s last accomplishment was the new LPX Orioli 931cc engine. The new unit has partly been derived from the MV Agusta 800cc three-cylinder unit, though it is new with potential, mainly because it is fully Euro 5 compliant with large margins that will make its further evolution to Euro 6 easy. In the LPX Orioli it generates a claimed 124 hp at 10,000 rpm, with a massive 75.3 lb.-ft. torque peaking at 7,000 rpm.

Gillen’s last completed project was the 931cc engine powering the new LPX Orioli. (MV Agusta/)

For the past three years Gillen also acted as director of CRC, the MV Agusta advanced research center in Repubblica di San Marino. He was the man behind bringing MV Agusta out of bad times and into a condition positive enough to attract the attention of Pierer Group.

To be clear, Gillen is leaving MV Agusta upon his own decision in order to accept an offer from India’s TVS Motor Company to become the chief project engineer and member of the board of directors of Norton. Gillen has always loved and considers Norton one of the most iconic in the motorcycle industry.

Gillen admitted that his departure from MV Agusta was highly emotional. He added that he looks forward to teaming up with the Norton engineering team to conceive and develop highly advanced and prestigious Norton models that will compete on the highly competitive worldwide motorcycling arena.

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