Description
Author: Greg Pullen, Hardbound, 175 Pages, ISBN: 9781847979018, First Published, 2015
- The Complete Story from Pantah to Scrambler
With the launch of the new Scrambler, Ducati are reiterating their belief in the future and importance of the Desmodue range, which started life with their 1970s Grand Prix project and the original Pantah. Although Ducati's current sports bikes and MotoGP racers might seem to owe little to these bikes, in fact they all share a common heritage. Indeed, only when the Ducati 851 Superbike arrived with the Desmoquattro branding (desmo four - four desmodromically controlled valves per cylinder) did Ducati start to refer to the Pantahderived models as 'Desmodue' (desmo two, with two valves per cylinder).
For perhaps the first time Ducati Desmodue gives a definitive account of exactly how Ducati's Desmodue range fits into their history. It starts with an overview of how the Ducati brothers built and then lost their specialist radio equipment business, and how Italian politicians turned their name into the world's most famous motorcycle brand. Unbelievably, those same politicians seriously contemplated abandoning motorcycle manufacture in favour of building diesel engines, before Mike Hailwood and Sports Motorcycles' famous win at the 1978 TT finally persuaded them to put the first Desmodue - the 500 Pantah - into production.
When the Italian government sold Ducati to the Castiglioni family's Cagiva factory, the original intention was again to abandon motorcycle production, with Ducati supplying engines alone for a new range of Cagiva motorcycles -including the planned Cagiva Monster. Luckily the value of the Ducati name was quickly recognized, and the best-selling Desmodue Monster went on to save the factory, which was seemingly permanently on the brink of bankruptcy. Here is the story of the hugely popular Desmodue 900SS, and the halo bikes it spawned - the Mike Hailwood Evoluzione and the SportClassics. Along the way are the boardroom battles over the Hypermotard, the terrors of updating the Monster, and the pathway to the new Scrambler, heavily influenced by the new wave custom culture.
With the Scrambler, and new Ducati factories in Thailand and Brazil, the Desmodue story is brought right up to date - a story based around a wonderful corner of Italy, some very special motorcycles and the astonishing people who made it all happen.
