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Ducati V4 Apollo 1260 One look at the headlight nacellemounted speedometer lets you know that the Apollo was designed to conquer America. GPs for two or three seasons) and unable to afford to buy them both, the idea of restoring and riding a unique piece of Ducati's racing history came ahead of owning a dead-end dinosaur - and not even a desmo one, at that. What a missed opportunity, passing up on what is today most assuredly a million-dollar motorcycle! So instead it was Iwashita-san who bought the bike from DomiRacer a couple of years later for $17 ,000 big money, back then - and secreted it for the next decade in his private collection in Japan until 1995, when he displayed it at a vintage bike show in Tokyo. This alerted Ducati to the bike's eXistence, and when the factory museum was established in the wake of the TPG takeover at the end of '96, in due course it became a centerpiece exhibit on what will hopefully be an extended loan, after Pedretti £, Co. brought it back to original, running condition. But, still - it had never been ridden in public, so when Ducati decided to bring the ApolJo to Britain to run it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last year in front of 120,000 spectators, they did me the honor of asking if I'd ride it for them there. Sadly, family commitments made that impossible - so instead they asked me to come to Bologna a month or so earlier to make sure it was running okay for whoever took my place. Happy to oblige, amici provided you have some modem tires fitted, to make sure I don't emulate Fuzzi Librenti 40 years ago and have the rear tread wrap itself around my neck! Actually, while the pair of whitewalled 16-inch Goodyears the Apollo wears today are the same type as those on the bike when it appeared at Daytona 40 years back, at least they're freshly-fitted new-old stock, so they're quite adequate for a gentle 48 MAY 7, 2003· eye • • cruise in which the headlamp-mounted Jaeger speedo's needle didn't once pass the 70 mph mark - yes, miles not kilometers, inevitably reflecting the market it was built for. At just 29.5 inches high the relatively plush seat (its originality is underlined by the mark of a '60s coffee cup imprinted in the cream vinyl upholstery!) is low enough to throw a leg over easily, and once astride the Apollo you're immediately surprised how low-slung and slim it feels - it isn't as wide as it looks once you're sitting on it, and indeed it seems hardly any bulkier than a bevel-drive desmo V-twin. The high, pulled-back handlebar is very '60s, very U.S. of A., though not as exaggerated as on some later Harleys, and combined with the well-placed footrests, which aren't nearly as far forward as on many modern cruisers, delivers a surprisingly comfy riding stance that doesn't become a problem at speed, in spite of the high bars. You don't feel you have to hang on too tight, and there's no instability at speed as a result. Just chill out and cruise. Okay, time to do just that, by scorning the kickstart and twisting the ignition key in its slot in the headlamp shell to tum the engine over via the Fiat car self-starter until it chugs into life. The four Dell'Orto racing carbs that the Apollo currently wears (and which presumably therefore indicate that this bike has the most powerful state of tune, not the restricted twin-carb spec) scorn the use of a choke, but on a warm Italian June day, the motor catches quite qUickly then settles down to quite a fast idle - no revcounter fitted, of course, but it sounds around 1500 rpm - with an unmistakable lilt more like an American V8 than an Italian four-cylinder minicar. The Apollo's exhaust note is absolutely unique, quite unlike any V4 Honda, and quite loud, too - the slender twin Silentium silencers don't have a lot of packing in them, and the result has the same trademark lilt as a later desmo Yn e _ s twin, only busier-sounding and higher-pitched, even at lower rpm. Very distinctive. Time to motor, and lifting my right toe to engage bottom gear on the oneup/four-down right-foot gearchange with its extremely long lever throw, I was impressed how smoothly the Apollo took off from rest, even if the clutch started slipping at first until I adjusted it up on the lever. After that it was fine, and without abusing it unduly I could make a reasonably spirited traffic-light launch - until the time came to change gear from the long first, up into second. That's when the age and nature of Ducati's V4 cruiser comes to your attention, because even swapping gears in the higher ratios without having to go through neutral is a very slow, measured process, which you must steel yourself not to rush. Do so, and for sure you'll get a false neutral - so respect the slow change, practically count to three before notching the next gear home, and you'll be okay. Mostly. However, once it goes in, the Apollo drives forward eagerly with a very long-legged feel, especially in the intermediate gears. There's great response from the light-action throttle, and frankly there's no way this engine feels like a child of the '60s, more like 15 years later. Top gear (fifth, remember, at a time when practically all other bikes, especially big ones, only had four-speed gearboxes) feels like an overdrive and would have been ideal for cruising the freeways then starting to proliferate throughout mid-'60s America as part of the Interstate Freeway Expansion Program. There's enough midrange pickup from the meaty 1256cc engine to use the bottom four ratios just as a means of getting into top and then leaving it there, surfing the rich waves of torque available at almost any revs. There's no record from the '60s of how much torque the Apollo ever produced, which is a shame, but if they ever get it on a dyno again to find out, I'll guarantee Despite its bulky appearance, the Apollo V4 _ only a few Inches wlcIer than Ducatl's standard 9O-degree V-twin. Furthermore, its perfect primary . - . . - t that no counteJ1lalancers were required. She _ as smooth as a sewing machine. the figure will be a stump-pulling one that will shame most modern hardware of the V-twin persuasion. Yet the Apollo's undoubtedly impressive engine stats are delivered with a smooth panache completely at odds with its '60s genesis. Compared to a British twin of the pre-Isolastic era or any Harley ever made, it's like pitting a sewing machine against a concrete mixer in terms of vibration and riding comfort; only a BMW Boxer of the era delivered anything like the same smoothness at any revs as the Apollo. Out of respect for the bike's rarity (and the lack of any spares!), I didn't rev it right out, but even at higher rpm the same unruffled, lazy-feeling response we came to take for granted a decade later on any V-twin bearing the Ducati badge is evident on the Apollo. At a time when there were no four-cylinder motorcycles of any type on the market, not even MV Agusta's plug-ugly 600, which began production in 1966, the Apollo would have set a standard of performance and rider comfort that even a decade later would set the benchmark for the Japanese to aim at. This was truly a bike ahead of its time, replete with avantgarde engineering. Well, enginewise, that is - for the Apollo's handling is frankly adequate rather than exceptional, even by the standards of the era, and the culprits are the U.S. police department regulations, which imposed the use of those 16-inch tires on a bike crying out for the l8-inch sports rubber then being introduced in the mid-'60s. Even without the safety considerations that led to the bike's demise, the dynamic limitations of the cartype four-ply Goodyear covers handicap the Apollo's handling potential