Prior to and even during the era of the 916, Ducati still needed to shift their relatively slow, old-tech 900SS. The 916 obviously grabbed headlines, handled like it was on the proverbial rails, and looked like sex. But it was also prohibitively expensive for the plebs to buy and especially to maintain, hideously uncomfortable for…
I’ve mentioned this before, but everything just sounds cooler in Italian. If you want to intimidate someone, just shout gibberish at them in German: anything you say sounds clipped and military and very, very serious. But yell at someone in Italian, and it just sounds like you’re trying to very emphatically seduce them. I mean,…
UPDATE: This bike sold before I could post it, but I’d thought I’d share it with you all anyway, since it is so darn nice. -Tad The dream of the 1980s was to turbo all the things. Cars, hairdryers, sneakers… If you could buy it, someone was trying to slap a TURBO badge on it…
Update 5.2.2018: Price reduced to $16,750! Good luck to buyers and seller! -dc Update 3.16.2018: Recently serviced late last year at local Ducati specialist, including new timing belts, idler and tensioners, valve adjust,all fluids changed – including brake and forks, and carb rebuild with new accelerator pump. New price is $18,500 or best offer. Contact…
Fully-faired sportbikes of the 80s and 90s from Japan are almost without exception festooned with jagged graphics, huge logos, hilariously technical-sounding acronyms, and retina-searing colors. They’re pretty cool now in a retro way and some of them, like the famous Rothmans designs, are truly iconic, but they feel like rolling billboards. Which of course is…
Look, here’s the thing. If you’re buying bikes [or cars, for that matter] that were hyped to be “instant classics” when they were introduced, thinking you can flip them for a profit… You may be waiting a while. Consider all the folks who bought the MV Agusta F4 750 Serie Oro when it was new,…
They’re relatively rare here in the US, even in states with lax registration requirements, but late 80s and early 90s quarter-liter two-strokes were pretty widely available elsewhere in the sportbiking world, considering their narrowly-focused role and limited audience. Kawasaki was largely absent from the intense class rivalry during that period, though. Their earlier KR250 was…
To some, it might seem like sacrilege to take a gorgeous, expensive, limited-edition Ducati superbike and turn it into a trackday toy. But if you’ve got the money to spend on something you can afford to wreck and want the very best, you can’t go wrong with today’s Ducati 1098R track bike. Honestly, homologation-special Ducatis…
