Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

EUROFILE BY ALAN CATHCART D history book ueati A succinct (if inevitably abbreviated ) summary of the TPG takeover of Ducati has been included in the updated sec ond edition of Australian author Ian Falloon 's scho larly history of the Ita lian marque, "The Ducati Story," subtitled "Racing and production models from 1945 to the present day," and recently published by Haynes (ISBN 1 85960 442 0) . Though coverage of the company's ear ly da ys is rather sparse - the first 25 of Ducati's 50 years of existence compri se less than a quarter of the book Falloon is an au tho ritative source of the comparative specifications of the different V-twin models produced from 1972 up to the present day , wh ich is th e boo k's mai n value as a reference work. Falloon's schoolmasterly style not only be trays his day job bu t also lacks the spark of personal ity necessa ry to capture the essentially hu ma n element in Italian bike manufa ctu re: Reading abo ut Cag iva's 1985 rescue of Duca ti from the scrap heap of state-owned en terprises wo uld ma ke yo u think the Castiglioni b ro th e rs did it fo r bu sin ess reasons , ra ther tha n beca use they we re bike-mad tifosi w ho saw the cha nce to s tea l the key to the candy store! But the TPG rescue a d ecad e later of wh at by then was essentially a wit hered bra nch of the bankrupt Cagiva empire's tree is dea lt with concise ly, providing a win dow on Ducati 's new world, which is sti ll u nfolding. The wea lth of technical information makes this a mu st-have volum e for an y du catisia's bookshelf, while Falloon 's other new book, "Du cati Twins Restorat ion Guide - Bevel Twi ns 197185," published by Mot orbooks International an d also availab le through Haynes (ISBN 0 7603 0490 4), reflects the aut hor's p ainsta kin gly tec h nical acc u racy a nd a ttention to detail more ap propriately. Dueati stockfor sale? The july 31 anno uncement that TPG and its investment-banking partners Deut sche Morgan Gre nfell bough t the Cas tiglioni family' s remaining 49-pe rcent holding in Ducati (for an undisclosed sum) has no t only mad e the Italian sportbike 'manu facturer a 100-percen t America n-owned company, it has also cleared the d ecks for the stock-ma rket flotation of Duca ti Mo to r SpA tha t TPG has been planning since it acquired 51 percent of the company from Cag iva in September 1996. Since the original purchase, Duca ti's p roduction has more than doubled, from its low of 12,509 bikes in that year to a p rojected 27,500 units in 1998, with a corresponding 86-p ercent increase in tu rnover to 386 billion lire ($215 million) for the calenda r year of 1997, com pared to 1996. At the same time, TPG launched general syndication among 15 different ba nks of the 325 billion lire ($180 million) creditfacilities package required by Duca ti Motor SpA, spread over a 7.25-yea r term and earmarked for "gener al corp orate purposes." This s ubsta ntial - and quite no rmal - syndicated loan is reported to have had a strong response from the various banks that we re approached, and will likely have been taken up by the time these wo rds appear in print. This will leave Ducati Mo tor with a su bstantial line of credit to underw rite the development of a ran ge of new mod els over the next seven years, inclu di ng the success or to the 916 already revealed in th is column. Development of this is in full flow in the Bologna factory' s R&D depa rtment, and in keeping with Duca ti's heritage of innova tive yet ind ivid ua l design, it will al most cer tainly feature a major avant-garde engi neering featu re - as distinctive in its own w ay as desmodromic va lve operation - for which Ducati has acqui red th e prelim in ary righ ts fro m an ou tside so urce, and which it is curre ntly evaluating for adoption on its nex t-generation engines . There is no such radical technology on the chassis front , thou gh , in spite of the purported hu b-center desmo superbike alleged ly "revea led " recen tly by a Briti sh ta bl oid bike paper. 'This is comp lete fiction ," says Ducati's chief of design, Pierre Terblanche . "Apart from the fact that nob ody here in Bologna thinks that hu b-cen ter steering works properly, the next-generation Ducati su per bike must retain the trad ition al appea rance of a conventio na l motorcycle for co mmercial as much as technical rea son s, w hile im proving its dyna mic and hand ling qualities over the al ready high standard of the 916. Th is will be achieved by refining the existing package, reducing weight and improving . aerodynamics - not by fitting a fu nny front end jus t to look d ifferent!" . However, while TPG 's sta ted intention from the beginning was to go public on the New York Stock Exchange with Ducati (thus realizin g a profit fro m its investment), only wit h the elimination of the Cag iva eleme nt in the company's ownership has a clea r path to this flo tation fina lly been se t up. TPG executives declined to respond to speculation as to when this wo uld occur, bu t an indirect lead po inting to a Ma rch 1999 date has now come from a nother so u rce. As revea led in thi s colu m n las t month, Aus tria n motorcycle manufactu rer KTM has now confirmed tha t it is d iscussin g coope ra tion with Harl ey-David son, thou gh it discoun ts reports that the Ame rican company is poised to take over the off-roa d specialists. "Tha t is certa inly no t tru e, tho ug h we are having really construc tive tal ks abou t wha t we could do toge ther in the mark et," . said KTM board mem ber Rud olf Knu en z. Knuenz did, however, say that it could no t be ru led ou t that Harley could acq uire a fina ncial stake in KTM so metime soo n, in the ambitious interests of allowing KTM to offer cus tomers a broader spread of prod ucts in competition with those of japanese manufac tu rers . Knu en z went on to reveal tha t KTM had also begu n talks wit h TPG abo u t Ducati bu ying a stake in the Austria n com pany, but that such tal ks had cooled beca use , as Knuenz is reported to have told Reuters, "Ducati is for the time bei ng pr eoccupied wit h an impending Wall Stree t public listing in March or April nex t yea r. Only then wi ll the door be open there again" - and then only if Ha rley and KTM haven't gotten toget her first. This gives a clear signal not only as to the tru th of the ru mo rs of a possible KTM/ Har ley link, but also as to the timing of Ducati's stockmarket flota tion . It' s a good bet that , by th is time next yea r, Du cat i will be a publicly qu oted com pa ny for the first time in its 50-year history. A ssen Historiesvideo In case you missed the outstandi ng historic-bike eve nt of 1998 and couldn' t get to the Asse n Centennial Classic back in May, the motorsport specialists at Duke Vid eo ha ve rel eased th e first of th ree videos co m memo ra ting this literall y uniqu e event, which bro u gh t together mor e than 200 riders from the 1950-79 era, in cl u d ing m or e th an 40 wo r ld cha mpio ns from thr ee. d eca des, a ll mounted on the ma chi nes tha t mad e them famous. Three days of practice an d racing in glorious su nshine on the historic Du tch GP circuit ha ve been cap tu red on the first of these videos, "The Assen Ce nten nial Classic Highligh ts," and as one who was for tunate to have been th ere in p erson, I ca n say it ' s a su preme mem ento of a mem orab le festival of nostalgia . It is a thrull to hea r and And the Bimota that could have been [8 a ~. ~ CX) 0\ 0\ ,..... ~ ,.....' l-o (J) .c o .... u o 4 Tho ug h no longer involved wi th the compa ny, Bim ota co-found er Gius eppi Morri was present as one of the guests of hon or at the compa ny's 25th bi rthd ay celebratio ns , a nd, in conversation with Adria no Aureli a nd Francesco Tog non, he revealed so me fascina ting nuggets from Bimota's past history . No t only di d he reject the Britten option on gro u nds of cost - a decision he says he still feels was the righ t one, given that the eng ine wo uld have had to be completely red esigned for street use - bu t Mo rri says he in itially conceived the Vdue project as a reduced-cost carbureted V-tw in with convent ional chassis, selling for less than $16,500 and thus opening up Bimo ta ownersh ip to a wider public. Bu t this was back in 1988, when Fede rico Martini was still chief eng inee r, and Bimo ta was king of the su perb ike w o rld w it h it s fuel-injec ted, Yamaha engined YB4EIR. Flus hed with thi s success, says Morri, Martini convinced him to use EFI rather than carbs on the Vdu e, in sp ite of th e d iffi cu lties of fuel-injec ting a tw o-str oke, which he felt he would be ab le to reso lve - bu t the n he left to head up R&D at Giler a and was repl aced by Marconi, who wanted to fit the motor in to a Tesi chassis! The origina l id ea, says Morri, was to ge t Suz u ki to build the Vdue engines in japan alongsi de the RGV250 eng ines the y were selling to Apri lia - also a 90-degree Vtw in cra nkcase reed -val ve design, like the Bimota motor! - which wo uld have ass ured jap anese levels of manufac- see histor ic bikes such as the twin-cylinder 50cc Ho nda , V-four Yamaha 125 and 250, the fire briga de of red MV Agus tas and a flee t of mor e m od ern ja panese an d It alian tw o-s tro kes, a ll rid den by stars suc h as Agostini , Duke, Read , Surtees, Villa , Red m an, Ubbiali, Sh eene, Balling ton , Mamol a a n d com p an y in front of a crowd of 50,000 well-eaptured o n th is, th e"fi rs t o f a tri o of ta p es turing qua lity, an d so wo uld su rely have prevented the troubles which ensued from ever arising . But Suzuki was concern ed that Bimota planned to sell the Vd ue in the Uni ted Stat es, thu s exposing th em to possible product-liab ility claims, so the japanese company declined to become involved . Pity : Morri 's wealth of reminiscen ce also revealed the fasci nating p ossibili ty of an oval-pis ton Honda N R750power ed Bimota, w hich was se riously discussed af ter engi neer Ma rtini and HRC boss Yoichi Oguma met by cha nce in a Sugo sushibar at the 1988 japanese World Superbike round! This led to a roun d of more-formal meeti ngs between Hond a an d Bimota (which, it must be remembered, had proved its tech nica l expertise on the world stage that year by leading Ho nda all the way in the World Su perbike series until rider Tard ozzi cras hed on the wa rmup lap of the fina l race in New Zealand, thus forfeiting the title to Honda-mounted Fred Merkel), with the possibility of oval-piston engines being su pplied to Bimo ta for them to cons truct a mu ch mor e hard-ed ged N R750-powered sportbike than the one Ho nda had en ded up building, in return for which the Italians wo uld bu ild a chassis for the NS R250 to resolve the ha nd lin g p roblem s experienced wi th the ja pa nese company's 250cc GP bike. But then Hond a go t the NSR dia led in, and the idea of such a collabo ra tion was d rop ped . What a sha me - but perhaps the rumored approach by Bimota to Honda to obtain supplies of the CBRl100XX eng ine to develop the (reco rded in stereo) that Du ke is p lan ni ng to release. The othe rs, "Ride rs of the Centen nia l Classic" and "Machines of the Ce ntennia l Classic," will follow lat er th is year. Each vid eo is available from Duke distribu tor outlets or by mail from Duke Video, PO Box 46, Douglas, Isle of Man 1M99 100. Orders can also be mad e via the Interne t at www.duk e0 vid eo.com. wor ld 's ultimat e high-speed wea pon - bu t w ith ad ded hand ling! - may resu rrect such a colla bo ra tion. It may be J3 years since Honda last had an engi ne-su pply ag reement wi th Bimota for the HB3 - but it's wo rth remembering tha t the very first Bimota built by Massimo Tamburini 25 yea rs ago was the Honda-engin ed HB1. If you find a Morbideill-powe red Bimota tantali zing, how ab out an NR750 engine between the spars? Bimota cofounder Giusepp i Morri said it almost happened.

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