Although Ducati is now owned by Automobili Lamborghini, the Bologna company is regarded as the Ferrari of the motorcycle world. Since the 1950s, its sporting motorcycles have been a favorite target of racers, tweakers and customizers.
In the custom world, the SportClassic is regarded as the archetypal modern-day café racer. Designed by Pierre Terblanche and launched in 2003, the SportClassic was way ahead of its time and sold poorly until its demise in 2010. But nowadays, values of Ducati models are rising rapidly and the styling is uniquely pleasing to the eye.
The Pantah and Monster have always been popular Ducati bikes with builders, but we’re now seeing the purer sportbikes creeping into the scene—often with ‘retro fighter’ builds—and a huge number of Scrambler customs.
A Gucci-inspired Ducati Monster S2R from Estonia, a classic Triton from one of Britain’s best builders, plus a short appreciation of Colin Seeley, who passed away last week. You could also win the personal Triumph T140V of Dare Jennings, the founder of Deus, in a raffle to benefit three Australian bushfire charities.
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Mike Vienne is a man obsessed by weight. His specialty is turning blunt knives into razor-sharp scalpels: or rather, improving sportbikes by stripping off everything that slows them down. He runs L.A.-based Championship Cycles, which “began from the idea that less is more. Because more is heavy, and heavy is slow.”
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The incomparable Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show went down this past weekend, and as usual the brightest stars of the Japanese custom scene pulled out all the stops. We weren’t there in person this time, but thanks to social media we’ve already earmarked our favorite builds from the show. Here’s the first: a genre-defying Ducati…
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There are motorcycles that are considered so sacred, you wouldn’t dare customize them. And there are motorcycles that work so well out the box, you probably wouldn’t want to customize them, even if the opportunity presented itself. We’d file the Ducati Hypermotard 939 in that last category. Its torquey Testastretta L-twin motor makes ample power…
Read more »There are always a few surprises at the EICMA motorcycle show. This year, one of the biggest was the launch of this…
Read more »The S4R has got to be one of Ducati’s greatest hits. The water-cooled Monster used a retuned DOHC 996 engine with eight…
Read more »You could call it a mongrel, or a parts bin special—but we reckon this unusual Ducati is one of the cleverest and…
Read more »We’re always intrigued when design professionals customize a bike — and even more so when when they’re automotive specialists. This long, low…
Read more »The Ducati Monster is one of motorcycling’s greatest success stories. Miguel Galluzzi’s brainchild first rolled out of the factory in 1993, and…
Read more »A Ducati Panigale 899 with a 1950s sci-fi vibe, a super-stylish Honda CB900 Bol D’Or from Australia, a look at the new…
Read more »Bad Winners wowed us last year with a sharp, purpose-built flat tracker based on the Ducati Scrambler. Now the Parisian shop’s raised…
Read more »The Ducati Monster is one of the best-selling motorcycles in Europe. It’s been around for over a quarter of a century, and…
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