When Ducati saw that even an extreme V-twin couldn’t win in MotoGP, it fielded a higher-revving V-4. Many Ducatisti choked on the news—Ducati is our V-twin company!
When Ducati’s many years of V-twin success in World Superbike tapered off, the company designed a superperformance production V-4 and quickly set about creating other versions of that new engine for other applications.
And now Monster, conceived as a sporting engine in a bike designed for all-around riding, will receive an updated chassis of modern aluminum castings, replacing the long-serving “trellis” frame of welded steel tubes so beloved by Ducati’s faithful. No more trellis? Impossible!
In my last conversation with Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali, I asked him why Ducati produced the ultra-performance V-4 in a time of declining interest in literbikes.
“Ducati’s success is driven by the company’s ability to bring the leading edge of motorcycling to its customers,” he said. “Ducati must therefore continue to satisfy their expectation that the company will remain the ‘arrow of progress.’”
Owners did not complain when Ducati replaced its previous casting methods with Ritter Vacural, as that change had little effect on appearance. It was a technological improvement, producing castings that were lighter, sounder, and stronger than before. It is through use of such advanced methods that Ducati now builds its new V-4 engine to a weight of 142 pounds.
What these examples demonstrate is how technological change, which has contributed so much to Ducati’s success, can nevertheless conflict with iconic status. Ducati V-twins won 14 World Superbike titles—but none in the last nine years. Those championships established Ducati’s identity as the world’s premier maker of V-twins, but lately that does nothing to sustain Ducati’s role as the “arrow of progress.”
Ducati’s adherence to the V-twin was different from Ducatistis’ love for it. For Ducati, the V-twin continued to offer development potential over many years, but when further R&D could no longer sustain its success, it had to be replaced. Ducati street riders, identifying with V-twin sound and feel, were insulated from that reality.
It’s not always so clear-cut. In the 1960s Triumph’s engineers and managers knew they’d gone as far as they could with the parallel twin (vibration had become the central issue) and that a new design, opening fresh avenues of development, was urgently needed. Riders in the US, hearing that something new was coming, mentally drew a dotted line into the future from the T110s and Bonnevilles they’d known and loved. Surely, riders thought, the new bike would be a sort of Super Bonneville, combining established Triumph style with a higher level of performance. They loved the Bonneville’s tapering, bulbous tank, “sausage” mufflers, and open classic outline (you could see right through those bikes).
Instead, Triumph brought them the strange Trident, a three-cylinder 750 in an oddly styled bike, and a complete departure from what had gone before—not remotely a “Super Bonnie.” In answer to customer comments—”It’s just the old 500 twin with an extra cylinder stuck on, Buck Rogers styling, heavy-looking; where’s the light-and-agile?”—Triumph took the line that “it’s up to us to make the motorcycles and it’s up to you to buy them.”
That high-and-mighty attitude completely misjudged a major market, and Trident was eclipsed by Honda’s shocker, the four-cylinder, overhead-cam CB750.
Pilots who trained in open-cockpit biplanes of the 1920s and ’30s were initially unhappy in the streamlined enclosed-cockpit monoplane fighters appearing in the late 1930s. How can I judge sideslip if there’s no wind on my cheek? Biplanes turn tighter than any monoplane!
The leadership paid them no attention because the new fighters were soon flying 150 mph faster than the old bipes. The new monoplanes could hit incoming bombers before they reached their targets, whereas slower biplanes might never make contact at all.
The issue with Monster’s switch to a cast-aluminum chassis, clearly inspired by that of the V-4 Panigale, is similar. By going racing, Ducati constantly confronts problems that will impact production bikes in 10 years. By 2008, the high grip of racing tires had overpowered their flexy trellis MotoGP bike; at the time, Casey Stoner said, “On that thing, you can’t hit the same point on the track two laps running.” Its 2009 carbon replacement was hugely stiff in all directions, giving zero warning of the grip limit, too often putting Stoner in the gravel. The V-4 Panigale’s cast-aluminum chassis incorporates directional flex to keep its tires hooked up at high lean angles. That’s the real reason it’s being given to Monster, not to cut weight. Yes, you could cut weight with an aluminum trellis frame and paint it black for nostalgia, but as aluminum is only one-third as stiff as steel it would suffer Stoner’s trellis problem in spades.
And there’s another reason: Is it responsible to have a technology that could prevent certain kinds of accidents and not use it? This is a question lawyers often put to juries in product liability suits.
You say you don’t ride that hard? The beloved old chassis is just fine? The trouble is, some people are going to push to the limit, and they expect Ducati to constantly raise it, not leave it where it was 12 years ago.
What is a manufacturer of iconic machines to do? Harley-Davidson has historically been extremely careful in this regard, studying the direction of custom bike building and doing as little as possible to disturb its tight relationship with its customers. Yet it disappointed many with LiveWire. With its Trident of the late ’60s (today sought as a classic by collectors), Triumph effectively told its customers, “Take it or leave it—this is what we’re building.” And the customers left it, buying 400,000 Honda CB750s versus 27,000 Tri/BSA triples.
Harley Earl, the grand old man of auto styling, said, “Style must lead public taste. But not by too much.” In other words, change is necessary because boredom won’t sell product, but too-rapid change makes people uncomfortable.
In our digital world, change won’t be stopped. Educate the buyer and hope for understanding.
