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…
When the 1994 Ducati 916 was unleashed, it caused the motorcycle world to stand up so fast it promptly fell right back down on its ass. When the industry press and its leather-clad readership had finally quit seeing stars, what they were staring at was a genre-definer the likes of which hadn’t come along since…
Drumming up business sometimes involves a round of badge engineering, which Ducati succumbed to in the early 1990’s with their SuperSports. The normally venerable Sport Production designation was a bit diluted but the all-American model was graced with some carbon components and Showa adjustable suspension. Still it’s a significant and low-production Ducati, and number 349…
Collectable motorcycles – especially those from the late 1970s through 1980s – are on the rise. Values have been notching up to the point where many of us can remember when “…you could buy one for (insert paltry sum here)…” This is true of practically any desirable bike in recent memory; for every bike there…
To the average sportbike addict, the 2008 Ducati Desmosedici RR stands alone among race replica bikes as the one that nailed all the details and defined the genre in a taught, carbon fiber-clad package. Honda saddled its RC213-VS with electronic nannies, a restrictive exhaust and a collectors-only asking price. Ducati engaged in no such silliness.…
With a great portion of the country below freezing ( so cold here yesterday I couldn’t tell if my heated gear was even working ) the palm trees in this eBay offering got my attention – and the S4RS in the foreground isn’t too shabby either. The 1098-based flagship is a bona fide naked superbike.…
Ducati’s 916 was on the verge of success when fire at their shops in Bologna forced a move to their parent company Cagiva’s facility in Varese. The resulting year’s worth of production were given more than the usual hands-on attention and have acquired a certain cachet among Ducatisti. This collector-owned 916 has 10,000 miles and…
Made for just two years between 2002 and 2003, the Ducati 620 Sport was intended as an affordable way into Ducati ownership for riders more interested in the Ducati brand than in actual speed. But Ducati being Ducati, they were unable to build a sporty bike that actually handled badly, and they managed to create…