Husqvarna Nuda 900 Touring spy shot

The year 2012 has been quite good for Husqvarna in terms of sales.
The Swedish-named BMW-owned Italian manufacturer sold 10,751 motorcycles last year (+15.
7% over the previous year), 1,936 of which belong the recent ’street range’ of the brand, consisting of the naked Nuda 900 and its more ’sporty’ variant, the Nuda 900R.

Looking closely at these figures, the success of these two models can be actually considered a nice breath of fresh air for Husqvarna: if they had to rely only on their ‘traditional’ single-cylinder production (meaning the sporty models of their enduro, supermoto and motocross ranges) they would have suffered a -19% in terms of sales compared to last year.

With that in mind, this ’spy shot’ featuring what should be a prototype for a new ‘Tourer’ variant of the Nuda 900 comes as no surprise.
The image was published on its official Facebook page by the 100hp Ducati DOC club from Varese, Italy (which is the same city where the main Husqvarna factory is located), and shows us a mildly disguised proptotype engaged in a test on a highway close to the Malpensa Airport in Milan.

That engine looks like the one equipping the Nuda 900 (which is the same one powering the BMW F800 GS), and putting two and two together we think that Husqvarna is about to enter yet another segment of the motorcycle market.
From what we can see in the shot, this ‘Nuda’ is of course lass ‘naked’ than the other versions currently available on the market: it sports a quite generous fairing ay the front – which culminates in a rather high windshield – while the large saddle seems to offer more than enough space for both rider and passenger.
Presumably, the model will be ready to enter the market in 2014, although at the moment it is not clear whether it will be launched as a new model of the ‘Nuda 900′ series or as a stand-alone product.
We shouldn’t be waiting too long to find that out.