Ducati Motorcycles

About ducati

Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. is an Italian company that designs and manufactures motorcycles. Headquartered in Bologna, Italy, Ducati is owned by Audi through its Italian subsidiary Lamborghini.

In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno Cavalieri Ducati; founded Societa Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components.

At the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy"). The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale.

So in 1950, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike weighing 98 lb (44 kg) with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mm carburetor giving just under 200 mpg-US (1.2 L/100 km; 240 mpg-imp). Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL". The chief designer of most Ducati motorcycles in the 1950s was Fabio Taglioni

In 1952 Ducati introduced 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter).

In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities, Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines.

In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the fastest 250 cc road bike then available, the Mach 1.

In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement V-twin motorcycles and in 1973, released a V-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design.

In 1973, Ducati commemorated its 1972 win at the Imola 200 with the production model green frame Ducati 750 SuperSport.

In 1993 Monster model appeared, a bike with exposed trellis and engine. It makes about half of all sales.

Ducati is best known for high performance motorcycles characterized by large capacity four-stroke, 90° V-twin engines, featuring a desmodromic valve design. Ducati refers to this configuration as L-twin because one cylinder is vertical while the other is horizontal, making it look like a letter "L". Modern Ducatis remain among the dominant performance motorcycles available today partly because of the desmodromic valve design, which is nearing its 50th year of use.

While most other manufacturers utilize wet clutches (with the spinning parts bathed in oil) Ducati previously used multiplate dry clutches in many of their motorcycles. The dry clutch eliminates the power loss from oil viscosity drag on the engine even though the engagement may not be as smooth as the oil bath versions but the clutch plates can wear more rapidly. Ducati has converted to wet clutches across their current product lines.

Ducati also extensively uses the Trellis Steel Frame configuration, although Ducati's MotoGP project broke with this tradition by introducing a revolutionary carbon fibre frame for the Ducati Desmosedici GP9.

Moto blog

Ducati Forms New Brazilian Subsidiary After Collapse of Importer Izzo

Ducati announced the start of a new wholly-owned subsidiary for the Brazilian market after its former importing partner, the Izzo Group, ceased operations. The Izzo Group shut itself down earlier this month following a slow decline. At one point, the Izzo Group was one of Brazil’s largest motorcycle importers, with a list of manufacturers including Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Husqvarna, MV Agusta, Triumph and Zero.

Audi A1 Featuring Ducati 1199 Panigale Tricolore Colors

Another sign of the Audi-Ducati relationship has popped up at the motorcycle manufacturer’s headquarters in Bologna, Italy. Pictured here is an Audi A1 sports hatchback dressed in paint inspired by the Ducati 1199 Panigale S Tricolore. The special color scheme includes the Ducati logo on the hood, Italian red, white and green striping and red alloy wheels.

WSBK: 2012 Magny-Cours Results – Championship Decided by Half a Point

You would think carrying a 30.5 point lead into the final round of the 2012 World Superbike Championship would be a safe enough margin to win the title. Aprilia‘s Max Biaggi made it interesting, inexplicably crashing out of the first race at the finale in Magny-C0urs before scoring a fifth place finish in Race Two to give him a 0.5 point margin over Kawasaki‘s Tom Sykes to win the title. The 358 to 357.5 point difference is the narrowest finish ever in WSBK.

Brown, Folkard and Fry wrap up 848 Challenge finale

The Ducati 848 Challenge 2012 season drew to a close at the home of British Motorsport this weekend as the riders took to the fantastic Silverstone GP circuit.   Going into the weekend only one out of the top three championship positions had been decided, as Robbie Brown (Ducati Manchester) was crowned champion at Donington Park two weeks ago. This left plenty to play for, as James Folkard (Minards Pavlou Solicitors), Mike Edwards (OHLINS @ P&H Motorcycles) and Darren Fry (Hirebase Ducati Coventry) were all in with a shot of taking the runner up spot.

Ducati top brass check out Triumph's class

Manufacturers checking out manufacturers is nothing new. At trade shows like Intermot rival manufacturers are as eager as the journalists to see the new models being unveiled. I happened across three of Ducati's top brass checking out the bikes on Triumph's stand, Left to right you have: Diego Sgorbati, Marketing Director, Gabriele del Torchio, CEO and Claudio Domenicali, the boss of Ducati Corse.

Intermot 2012: Ducati Monster Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Ducati marked the 20th anniversary of its air-cooled naked Monster line at the Intermot show in Cologne, Germany, the exact site where the M900 was first unveiled back in 1992. For 2013, Ducati is offering an anniversary edition version with bronze-colored highlights reminiscent of the original M900. Available for the Monster 696, 796 and 1100 EVO, the 20th Anniversary Edition adds a steel trellis bronze frame, gold brake components, champagne front forks, gray swignarm, engine outer casings and lower triple clamp and chrome headlamp support.

Intermot 2012: 2013 Ducati 848 EVO Corse Special Edition Announced

We expected more from Ducati at the 2012 Intermot show as the Italian manufacturer makes its first appearance at the Cologne show under its new German owners at Audi and the Volkswagen Group. Instead, Ducati chose to keep its juiciest reveals for its home market at EICMA in November while revealing a number of color updates to returning models at Intermot. Ordinarily, we’d call this disappointing but one look at the 2013 Ducati 848 EVO Corse changed our minds.

Magneti Marelli to Supply Electronics System to MotoGP Teams

It’s no secret that promoter Dorna Motorsports has been trying to push a standardized electronics control unit for teams in the MotoGP World Championship. The lack of a top-tier electronics package has been one of the biggest challenges faced by MotoGP’s claiming rule teams, and a spec ECU would narrow the gap between the CRT bikes and the factory prototypes. The manufacturers competing in the series, Honda, Ducati and Yamaha, understandably are resistant to the idea considering the effort they’ve put in to develop their electronics systems.

How the 2013 Ducati Multistrada 1200S’ Skyhook Suspension Works

When Ducati announced the updates for its 2013 Multistrada 1200 lineup, the Italian manufacturer was surprisingly quiet about the line’s most notable upgrade, the Ducati Skyhook Suspension. All we were told was the system is a semi-active suspension using Sachs components that adjusts its damping settings to varying riding conditions. Ducati has now provided more information about the DSS technology which will be standard equipment on the three “S” versions of the Multistrada 1200, the Touring model, the sportier Pikes Peak model and the new flagship Granturismo model.

Report: Ducati to Introduce Three 820cc Models at EICMA

Ducati will introduce three new models built around an 820cc platform at the 2012 EICMA show, reports French site Moto-Station. Moto-Station reports the three new models will be a Multistrada 820, a Hypermotard 820 and an as-yet unnamed roadster. Over the last couple of months, spy photos of a new mid-sized Ducati model has been making the rounds, with many people claiming it will be a new liquid-cooled Hypermotard while others, like our own Kevin Duke, believe the new model would be a Multistrada.