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Cagiva C594 GP 500 Racer

In 1994, American rider John Kocinski was winning races and getting podium finishes on one of the most beautiful 500cc GP bikes of all time - the glorious, gorgeous Cagiva C594.

Powered by a two-stroke 498cc V4 that produced 177bhp at 12,600rpm, the C594 was fitted with a hybrid carbonfibre/aluminium twin-spar chassis, had a carbonfibre swingarm and weighed just 122 kilos.

It was a very high-tech machine, with programmable EPROM chips for variable ignition timing, a sophisticated fuel-injection system, electronically contolled semi-active suspension, and even an experimental traction control system, which could cut out one or two of the V4's cylinders in certain situations, to reduce wheelspin.

The “Sophisticated fuel-injection systems” was actually a TAG4.8C an ECU developed by TAG electronic systems now better known as McLaren Electronics. The TAG4.8C was a scaled down version of the TAG2.12F unit initially introduced into F1 on the 1993 McLaren MP4/8 and had the same capabilities as this unit. That is, it was a fully programmable unit that provided electronically controlled fuelling and ignition capabilities as well as the same level of sophisticated data logging and telemetry. The TAG2.12F itself was the 2nd Generation ECU from TAG electronic systems, the first, initially intended for a V8 Porsche, but actually introduced on the 1991 Silver Arrows C291 a 3.5 Litre flat 12 with twin injection and twin ignition. All this, back in the early 1990s!