DEVIANT DESMO

The radical story behind a Ducati custom cruiser ...

- ALAN CATHCART

Until 2011 the thought of Ducati building a custom cruiser, let alone a chopper, would have been like Ferrari building a minivan. As in, don't go there, amici. But that year the Italian bike firm unveiled its Diavel in disguise, a desmo V-Max with half as many cylinders complete with styling that Roland Sands or Jesse James would be proud of. That made it finally OK to think of Ducati as a custom bike company at last.

Except, their oldest South African dealer, the firm that introduced Ducati to the Dark Continent exactly 60 years ago, had already gone and done it for them - and, arguably, more authentically. For the MFR Ducati Mutant powerchopper was an improbable blend of several Ducati trademark design elements, including a trellis frame housing an air-cooled 90° V-twin desmo motor, a singlesided swingarm, carbon bodywork and Öhlins suspension, with the raked-out forks and laid-back looks of a bike that Captain America might have approved of riding on from L.A. to Noo'Ahlins in That Movie, with smooth, flowing, typically chopper-like lines, coupled with a massive 300-section rear tyre and two metre-long wheelbase. It was a deviant desmo.