Italian Blend

Has the new Café Racer managed to combine Ducati’s sportiness and the easy nature of the Scrambler range? Roland Brown found out…

The ride on twisty roads in the hills south of Bologna is fabulous, and I’m pretty sure that the Scrambler Café Racer has got what it takes to be a hit. But not because of how it’s working right now.

After all, the black-and-gold finished Café Racer is in its element on these smooth-surfaced Apennine switchbacks. It’s a slim, light Ducati V-twin, designed to resemble the legendary 900SS that was among the world’s great superbikes back in 1978. But you’d expect any Ducati to work well here, on the sinuous roads where the local firm’s test riders have been developing bikes for decades – and where any light, sporty machine with clip-on bars, a decent chassis and plenty of ground clearance would be a blast.

What’s done more to convince me that this latest addition to the Scrambler family will be a success is how well it worked before we got here. Back down in the city its gentle throttle response, effortless agility, reasonably upright riding position and generous suspension travel made battling with traffic on bumpy Bolognese streets relatively painless.

If Ducati’s development team had a motto for the Café Racer, it would perhaps be ‘once bitten, twice shy’ because the firm has been here before, creating a modern V-twin roadster with sporty looks to resemble a famous old model. And the experience wasn’t a huge success, at least commercially.

The Sport 1000 that began the SportClassic range in 2006 was inspired by the 750 Sport from the early Seventies. It had an aggressive riding position thanks to low-set clip-ons, and punchy performance from a torquey 992cc engine. It looked good and went well, but proved too racy and uncomfortable for many of the relatively old riders who bought one.