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

Streetfighter 848, with added bling

Now, you could hardly accuse the Streetfighter of not being good-looking, but for those of you who want a little more, Ducati have - of course - produced a range of aftermarket accessories to add a bit of bling to the already fairly tasty Streetfighter 848.Most of the Japanese aftermarket add-ons (or genuine accessories as they're known) are either too conservative or remarkably pointless. Let's take the fake-carbon clock surround on the CBR600RR or body-coloured pillion seat hump on the R1 as examples from a list of thousands.However, the bits bolted onto this Ducati look the part and give it an extra air of brutality and not a single centimetre of rim tape in sight.Check out the pics below; that seat unit is a work of art.

2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 Photo Gallery

Update: The review is now up! Read it here. Ducati has released a series of photos of the new Streetfighter 848 from the naked model’s European press launch.

Zero Enters South American Market

Zero Motorcycles has signed a distribution deal with the Brazilian dealer network Grupo Izzo, bringing its electric motorcycles to first Brazil, and soon across South America. Brazil is one of the world’s fastest growing markets for motorcycles, a market Zero hopes to tap with its new distribution deal. Grupo Izzo is based mainly in Brazil with 11 locations, but has plans to expand into other South American countries.

2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 MSRP Set at $12,995

Ducati is pricing its new Streetfighter 848 at $12,995, the same price as the 2011 848 EVO and $2,000 less than the original 1099cc Streetfighter. The new 2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 is equipped with a Testastretta Evoluzione engine similar to the one powering the 848 EVO but tuned to produce a claimed 132 hp and 69 ft-lb. (compared to the s848′s 140hp and 72.3 ft-lb.) In comparison, the 1199cc Streetfighter has a claimed output of 155 hp and 85 ft-lb.

848 Challenge: Silverstone race results

Race 1: Race 1 produced another memorable 848 Challenge race, with Mike Edwards (MSKworks.com) in determined mood to record his first race victory of the season. But Kenny Gilbertson (AOR/Boast Plumbing), Leon Morris, and Robbie Brown (Ducati Manchester) were to push him all the way, with the front four riders each having held the lead by the half way point. Further back Mark Cheetham (Shorrocks Motorcycles) was trading places with ex-Champion Darren Fry (JHP/Buildbase Ducati) with Aaron Brown (Ladybirds Ducati) and Ricky Holden (Holden Racing) less that a second apart.

New 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale Spy Photos

New spy photos have emerged giving the clearest look yet at the upcoming 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale. Uploaded by a user on the Ducati.ms forum, the photographs show the Ducati 1199 Panigale still with some camouflaging but the clarity of the images offer a good idea of the overall fairing design as well as a look at the underslung Termignoni exhaust. Of course, the Internet being what it is, the new spy photos have elicited comments about the test rider’s size, but as a larger rider myself, I find it’s a nice change to see how a motorcycle looks for different body types.

Ducati’s Number 1 Market? The United States of America

The U.S.A. has become Ducati’s largest market, says Gabriele Del Torchio, Ducati Motor Holding president. “We sell more bikes here in the United States now than we do in our domestic market.

2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale Announced [Video]

Ducati announced its upcoming new 1198 replacement will be called the 1199 Panigale (pronounced “Pan-ee-gah-lee” for a region of Italy). The 2012 Ducati 1199 Panigale will have its full unveiling at the Nov. 10-13  2011 EICMA show in Milan.

Wrecked Ducati Desmosedici RR to be Auctioned

For sale to highest bidder: slightly used 2008 Ducati Desmosedici RR street-legal MotoGP replica. Okay, maybe “slightly used” is a bit misleading. This Ducati Desmosedici RR (one of only 1,500 produced) lost a battle with physics and currently sits in pieces at Insurance Auto Auctions’ Fremont, Calif., branch.

Oh no. Anther teaser campaign

Here's a message to all marketing people: 'teaser' campaigns are awful. We get the idea, you want to hype your forthcoming product, create an air of anticipation, get our attention so when you finally launch the thing we're all on the edge of our collective seats. Sure, with some products – mobile phones, computer games, whatever – the teaser campaign probably works.