For the past 67 years Ducati’s USP [unique selling proposition} has been the closeness of its customer products to the bikes its factory riders race with successfully at the highest level. Even if today it bravely seeks to compete with three of the four Japanese manufacturers in MotoGP racing, like the fourth, Kawasaki, Ducati’s natural sporting home is Superbike racing, with its riders aboard evolved versions of bikes its customers can buy in their friendly local Ducati dealer.
It’s been that way ever since May 1954, when progettista Fabio Taglioni began work at the state-owned Ducati factory in Bologna, then considered to be at the lower end of the plethora of Italian manufacturers competing to meet the need for personal transportation in postwar Italy, with a prosaic range comprising the Cucciolo clip-on moped engine, Cruiser scooter and various 100cc pushrod-engined models.
This story is from the September 2021 edition of Bike SA.
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This story is from the September 2021 edition of Bike SA.
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