When Pierre Terblanche took over the Ducati styling reins from Massimo Tamburini he had very big shoes to fill. For years the 916 / 996 / 998 series captured the hearts, minds and wallets of riders everywhere. In retrospect, the reception of the 999 (pronounced “ugly”) and the short span of three years availability was…
In 1994 Ducati unleashed the equivalent of a nuclear weapon in the face of a sport bike field full of conventional weaponry. That year Ducati introduced the legendary 916 – and commenced an enviable run of WSBK world titles (four within a five-year span). Simultaneously offering a quantum leap in twin-cylinder performance (horsepower, rev limits,…
Behold the mighty Ducati F1 special edition “Laguna Seca.” Essentially a factory hot rod based on the F1 (a 750cc version of the Tourist Trophy), the Laguna Seca shared a special tier with the two other limited edition models, the Santamonica and the Montjuich. All of the special models were named after race tracks where…
If you feel like snagging a patent-leather set of, um, leathers and flying around the Oakland freeways like Trinity did in The Matrix Reloaded, may we present your ride. The bike from the original Hollywood scene was a 2001 Ducati 996, but by the time the movie came out, Ducati’s 998 had reached dealers. So…
I’m going to go on record here, and tell you that I was wrong. In fact, I think many people were wrong. We just didn’t notice. You see, when the Ducati 916 was released it blew the world away with what a motorcycle should look like, sound like, and how one should move. Massimo Tamburini…
Sold before we could post it! This immaculate 998R is going to a new home after someone committed to the $26k BIN. -MI In the game of “there’s no substitute for cubic inches” the Ducati 998 was a step above that which came before. The last of the 916 lineage, the 998R model was everything…
What you’re looking at here is certainly not the nicest 2005 Ducati 999R that I have ever seen, but it is still a 2005 Ducati 999R, and that gives it a couple free passes and a trump card or two. Knicked though parts of it may be, it is still every bit the 135-horsepower carbon-clad…
I’m not sure you can overstate the importance of the Ducati 851 to the Italian brand’s position at the top of motorcycling’s desirability food chain. Get past the literally and figuratively square headlight — the steel-framed 1983 dad glasses of illumination — and everything else is focused, lithe Italic sin. The 851 took a pokey,…