Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

FEDERICO MINOU which takes some learning to approach properly. No European company has enough scale to go there and mount a countrywide operation correctly, so you have to choose the areas you want to concentrate on. The ideal would be to have a dealer network exclusively specializing in European motorcycles, with the same level of dealer coverage as Harley or the Japanese - but while the European industry is so fragmented and litigious, this is something that wouldn't make a lot of economic sense. But right now no European brand can afford to have a specialized dealer network in the USA, because they don't have the volume to do it with, given the geography of the country. All together, they could do it - and the interesting thing is that withjn the existing dealer network, there are some dealers which are exclusively specializing in the European brands. But they've had the foresight to go and assemble these franchises themselves - there's no master plan, no common ground so that we share the costs and the benefits of this. And that's a pity, because for many of our potentiaI customers in the U.S., the fact there's no Ducati dealer wjthin 300 miles of their house is a real problem - so the dream does not become a purchase. nate position of being able to simply pull out his pocketbook and write a check. And so although the check was for less money, given the desperate situation Guzzi was in, they took the check now rather than wait for a bigger one tomorrow. I guess you can't really blame them for that. Okay - but how about Husqvarna? Is it true you've been shopping around for a dirtbike manufacturer to give Ducati dealers the off-road product they presently lack in a growing market? We actually made an offer for Husqvarna back before Christmas, because with the same logic we wanted to acquire Moto Guzzi for, I think Husqvarna is a nice complement to Ducati's product line, and it would help us also to gain mass in the USA. We have a lot of respect for the product and the brand and what it represents, and we thought it might also be a way to help Claudio Castiglioni, who at the end of the day I admire as a great product man. But unfortunately this is not the time when you Q A wouldn't one solution be to make a deal with H.arley to sell Ducatis through its dealerships? Even if the rumors of its interest in acquiring you are unfounded, there's zero crossover between the two ranges, and one would presumably help the other. Have you explored this with them? well, let's turn that around and ask if we would be open to selling Harley-Davidson motorcycles through our stores in Italy, to which the answer is definitely no, because we're so much stronger in Italy that we would never allow a competitor for the floor space in the store to come in on the back of that. We have the scale in Italy to do it by ourselves, just as they have in the USA - so why should they want to help us? What you need to do is to join up with other people who don't have the same scale - firms like Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, Triumph, KTM and lots of others. Q Speaking of KTM underlines that such a link would provide ,Ducati dealers with the dirtbike range they presently lack. Why did you reject the chance to distribute their products through Ducati dealerships in Japan? Perhaps as a prelude to a greater collaboration in other markets? Because with the blurring of all the motorcycle segments, we and KTM are getting pretty close to treading on each other's toes! I would say that KTM, us and Harley-Davidson are the three most successful motorcycle companies in the world - we don't even know if the Japanese are truly successful or not, so leave them aside from it. I have great admiration for what the other two have done in quite different model sectors from each other and from us - but that doesn't stop each of us from looking over our shoulders at the other two! A KTM came very close to purchasing Moto Guzzi then withdrew at the very last moment. The word is that Ducati very nearly acquired Guzzi after that, presumably to expand your product range into the cruiser segment without building a Ducati cruiser. How close did you come to purchasing Moto Guzzi? I think we came very close indeed - when it came down to the wire, it was us and Aprilia, and we actually offered more money at the end of the day than Ivano Beggio. But because we are a listed company, our offer was subject to having to go to the bank and get the documents to arrange the finance, whereas Beggio was in the very fortu- Q A 24 JULY 16. 2003' 0: U 0: I • n e vv What about a true dual-purpose enduro version of the Multistrada - one designed to get its tires muddy? Have you considered developing such a bike? Look, we're a small company, an'd we can't afford to veer around in too many different directions. We can't exclude that, but we're still trying to get a feel for this model segment, which to start with is exceeding our best expectations. But is it a 3000 bikes a year segment, a 5000, or a 6000 a year one? If it's 6000, then of course we'll do other versions of it, and not necessarily only the enduro. We could do a touring version, too - there's 'lots of potential once the market's proven to us it's there. We really don't know what the boundaries of this Multistrada family are going to be. Q A Q Will you produce a desmoquattro version? lf we see that people want more power, why not? But the Multistrada is a bike we had to have a lot of guts to put into production, because it's such a great departure from our tradition. When we become a little more familiar with what the bike does and what our customers want from it, then you will see it moving in other directions. Pierre Terblanche has about 300 directions he wants to go with it! A A Q well - I've learned to never say never. I think it's an interesting market, and what really appeals to us is the overlap between the dirt and the road. Take the Multistrada - I think that was an interpretation of what we have seen out there, and as we saw the blurring of the model segments, we thought we could take some of our traditional core strengths from the sportbikes and put them in a bike that was blurring with another segment we were not in - and that was the reason for the Multistrada. A Okay - but now let's return to Supermoto. This is a fast-growing sporting sector, which is now takjng off in the USA where it was after all invented 20 years ago. Does Ducati plan to become a player here? we've seen the trend, of course, and now we're grappling with the idea of how we should respond to it. But when we launch a product, it's not a copy of something that's already out there, so while we're very interested in doing something, we don't know if our segments are going to blend nicely into that or not. For example, do you need a single or can you do something with a twin, which of course would make it much easier? If we had to develop a single, this would be a problem, because as you know very well, we already have a very good sport single which we did not think we could sell enough of in street form to justify converting to that from the road racer! At this point in time I don't think we have a single we can use for anything involving the dirt - but I think you do need a single for Supermoto, and so probably the answer is that we will not do it anytime soon. Q can overpay for something - you have to be careful that everything makes sense from the balance sheet, not just for the passion. So the passion was there, the product was there, but I'm afraid the balance sheet wasn't there, so we just couldn't do it. Did you consider purchasing the whole MV Agusta group from Banca Intesa, which holds the majority of the company's debt? well, I think MY Agusta itself would do so much better in Claudio's hands - it's a super niche product which overlaps the very top end of the Ducati range, so therefore it would not have been interesting for us. We only wanted Husqvarna, and so far we couldn't get it. Q A HOW about Vor, which was recently acquired by Mondial? Did you explore that first? Yes, we knew it was up for sale, and we looked at the company, which was a good one. But it was pretty small, without much substance, so it was more like buying an idea - and we have plenty of those ourselves, so we don't need to pay someone to think them for us! Q A Q Okay - but will Ducati develop a dirtbike range in-house? Given the worldwide increase in interest in single-cylinder Supermoto bikes, will Ducati develop its own interpretation of this type of bike, especially when you have such a history of dual-sport machinery from the past? Sf; A YOU wouldn't consider makjng something out of a 620cc V-twin Multistrada-based bike which could be stripped out and perhaps you could use for Monomarca racing, just as KTM is talking about doing with a Supermoto version of its V-twin 950 Duke, when it comes? l think it's a good idea, but this is all part of learning about what we do with the Multistrada family - and we're not at that point yet. We see that the market is out there, but we're still asking ourselves if that's for us or not - does it match wit~ our traditions, with our overall strategy, with our Q A

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