Bimota’s stock-in-trade has always been aggressive, lightweight racebikes for the road but, every once in a while, they throw us a curveball. Or even the occasional knuckleball like this DB3 Mantra. An unapologetically road-biased machine, Bimota’s third Ducati-powered special featured upright ergonomics, an oval-section trellis frame shared with the later DB4, a roto-molded fuel tank…
The 1980s were a period of gestation for Ducati, hitting their sportbike stride with the move from the bevel drive motors to the now-ubiquitous rubber belt-driven desmo valve train. And while Japan focused on technology such as four valves per cylinder, liquid cooling and a constantly changing array of multi-cylinder configurations, Ducati stuck to what…
Update 9.25.2018: This bike has SOLD! Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc If you have the Desmodromic Flu, the guys over at Iconic Motorbikes have the cure! And it’s a very, very yellow pill to swallow! The whole range of Ducati’s Tamburini-designed superbikes are likely at a low-ebb in terms of values, so if you’ve…
Hard to believe it was just 1968 when engineering director Fabio Taglioni put Ducati’s street eggs in the desmo basket, having used the valve actuation technique in race machines for several years. The Mk.3 line included 250, 350, and 450cc singles, and while this last-year model hasn’t run in a while, its low miles and…
Update 8.12.2018: This bike has SOLD! Congratulations to buyer and seller! -dc Italian bikes are sometimes accused of putting style before function, but I think it’s more accurate to say that they prioritize performance and style over comfort and practicality… But in the case of the Ducati MH900e, style was far and away the most…
I know it is early in the year, but I’m going to go out on a limb and proclaim this advert as one of the top 5 worst presentations of 2018. Fortunately, the bike is a MH900e – the Terblanche-designed internet wunderbike that put Ducati collectables on the map. Sold in limited numbers and online…
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.…