Update 8.25.2019: This bike has sold to an RSBFS reader! Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Our luck that Ducati was compelled to prove that their WSBK race machines weren’t too special, and a few hundred were made as homologation specials and offered to the cogniscenti. This 1990 851 SP3 can be displayed immediately, and…
The Ducati 916 is a bike that should need no introduction on these pages. The immortal, evolutionary offspring of the 851/888, the 916 offers every bit of performance that the evocative design implies. And while time has a tendency to mute the claims and hyperboles of an era, this model continues to represent itself well.…
To me, the very names for cars and bikes are simple, to the point. Leganza? What the hell’s a Leganza? Or a Spectra? But a GTO, or… a GTO? That just sounds cool. Thunderace sounds kind of silly, but R1M? That just exudes confidence. Even with a naturally cool-sounding language at their disposal, the Italians…
Some bikes take time to find their audience, but the Ducati Supermono was always going to be a classic. Created to compete in the Sound of Singles race series that supported World Superbike in the mid 1990s, the Supermono was a bit of a throwback to Ducati’s past: a pure racebike with exotic components, quality…
Ducati’s modern era really started here, with the 851. The air-cooled Pantah engine, with its rubber cam belts, was a step forward, compared to the bevel-drive twins and set the stage for Ducati’s move into the future. But it was the liquid-cooled, four-valve version of their classic L-twin that finally brought them fully into the…
The Ducati 888 filled the gap between the brand-redefining 851 and the legendary 916, bumping the 851’s fuel-injected, liquid-cooled, four-valve L-twin to 888cc. The inbetweener status didn’t phase the bike much, though, as it was enough for Doug Polen to net back-to-back World Superbike championships in ’91 and ’92. Production ended in ’94 as the…
The 888 was designed by Pierre Terblanche and a light update to the muscular 851, Ducati’s first desmoquattro. American Doug Polen had won the 1991 Superbike World Championship on an uprated 851, and the 888 homolagated the changes for the next year, returning with the #1 plate. This 888 has been treated to a silky…
It’s arguable whether or not Ducati’s iconic Monster actually started the naked bike craze. Certainly, the Honda Hawk GT and CB-1 beat it to market by more than a couple years, but were relative failures and certainly didn’t spark the public’s imagination in the same way: being first to market doesn’t really mean much if…