Ducati DU4
Ducati has been in business for many years and has produced a wide range of products including wartime condensers, cameras, radios and obviously, motorcycles. Not many Ducat fans know that Ducati has also designed and produced prototypes for four-wheeled vehicles.
The first four-wheeled project goes back to 1946, right around the time that Ducati began production following the WWII bombing that destroyed the factory in 1944. The Ducati brothers began producing the Cucciolo (puppy) in March of ’46, but, evidently, the economic pressures of the time pushed them further towards the development of an automobile. The company designed, at least on paper, a 250 cc vehicle with a 4-speed engine. Ironically enough, this engine was a 90° L-twin cylinder and the frame was designed with trellis tubes – both just like the Ducatis of today. The vehicle was 2-seater sedan and the one-and-only prototype was born in the summer of 1946 in the Ducati plant in Milan. The vehicle was named the DU4. Unfortunately, all that Ducati has left of this project are the designs. The prototype remained in Turin for many years and now belongs to a private collector. Despite the research in to the DU4, the automobile never went into production. Perhaps this was due to the great success of the Cucciolo – so much so that the company decided not to invest in a whole new kind of product.
In 1960, Engineer Fabio Taglioni designed and built an 8-cylinder desmodromic “V“ shaped engine for Osca Maserati. Maserati, located in the eastern suburbs of Bologna, in San Lazzaro di Savena, asked Taglioni for a propulsion engine to use on a racing car, probably destined for Formula 1 racing. Although an engine was built, the project was never completed. The engine now belongs to Giorgio Monetti, a man otherwise famous at Ducati for having ridden around the world on a Ducati 175 TS with his friend, Leopoldo Tartarini.
In the early 1960s, the team “Corse Tecno” was founded by the Pederzani brothers and their headquarters were right nearby in Borgo Panigale. Although Ducati wasn’t formally involved, one of its specialised mechanics, Renato Armaroli, was a part of the team. Armaroli worked in Ducati with some of the most famous Ducati mechanics like Franco Farné, Giorgio Nipoti, Rino Caracchi and Mario Recchia.
In 1964 a new kind of 4-wheeled racing began, the Formula K, named after the world of go-kart racing. One particular vehicle that raced in the Formula K was the Tecno K, built by Tecno, a company especially famous in the late 60s and 70s for its racing success in Formula 2 championships. The Tecno team was the starting point for famous riders like Ronnie Peterson, Francois Cevert and the Swiss rider Clay Regazzoni. In the brochures of the day, the Tecno K was described as a vehicle for single brand championships, designed with a 250cc motorcycle engine produced by one of various brands including: Benelli, Aermacchi, Morini and Ducati. Soon after, Ducati became the official supplier of the single-seater propulsion karts and even today, some historians and collectors call it the “Formula Ducati”.
In 1965, while the company was under state control, the CEO, Giuseppe Montano, decided to begin producing an automobile to increase the overall production volume. Ducati worked with the British company Leyland to produce a much-loved sports car, the Triumph Herald and production began in 1965. No one knows exactly how many automobiles were built in Ducati but you can identify them by the cursive logo reading Ducati Meccanica, right below the Triumph emblem.
The next two stories linking Ducati with the four-wheeled world occurred during the most difficult years for Ducati. Despite the victories on the track and successful projects like the Pantah, Ducati management no longer believed in the production of motorcycle engines and Ducati risked becoming a company producing diesel engines for use on boats or agricultural vehicles. The production of motorcycle engines was minimal, approximately 1700 units total per year. Between 1979 and 1984, Ducati Mechanica worked closely with the company VM, located nearby in Cento, in the Ferrara province. VM hired Ducati to produce a 4-cylinder turbo diesel engine for some of the Alfa Romeo cars. This continued at least through 1988 when the Castiglioni saved the company from potential closing. The Castiglioni brothers and their great enthusiasm saved Ducati from becoming an engine storage house and nothing else and brought Ducati back to its original focus on motorcycles.
The last chapter on 4-wheeled engines is more recent and comes out of the friendship and collaboration between Ducati and Ferrari. Between 1990 and 1992 Ducati produced a V-8 cylinder automobile engine that was designed by Ferrari but produced in Ducati. This engine was used for a limited series of the Lancia Thema, the 8.32.
Tecno K, a vehicle powered by a 250cc Ducati engine
Ducati Motor Holding, SpA (Borsa Italiana:DMH) is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer located in Bologna, Italy.
From their first post-Second World War bicycle-like low-displacement motorbikes Ducati has gained prominence in motorcycle racing and in the motorcycle industry.
In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the then fastest 250 cc road bike available, the Mach 1. In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement L-twin (i.e. a 90° V-twin) motorcycles and in 1973 released an L-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the lesser-known Cagiva name (at least outside of Italy). By the time the purchase was completed, Cagiva kept the "Ducati" name on its motorcycles. In 1996, Texas Pacific Group bought for US$325 million a 51% stake in the company and in 1998, bought the remaining 49% and became the sole owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an IPO of Ducati stock and renamed the company Ducati Motor Holding SpA. TPG sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati. In December 2005 Ducati returned to Italian ownership with the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.
In 1926 three brothers, Adriano, Marcello and Bruno Ducati, founded Societa Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce tubes, condensers and other radio components, becoming successful enough by 1935 to construct a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. During the war, although the Ducati factory was a repeated target for Allied bombing, production was maintained.
Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale.
In 1950 (after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold), in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 60 cc bike weighing 98 pounds with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mm carburetor giving just under 200 mpg (85 km/L). Ducati soon dropped the "Cucciolo" name in favor of "55M" and "65TL".
When the market moved toward larger motorcycles, Ducati management decided to respond, making an impression at an early-1952 Milan show, introducing their 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter). Despite being described as the most interesting new machine at the 1952 show, the Cruiser was not a great success, and only a few thousand were made over a two-year period before the model ceased production.
In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities, Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines. (Ducati Elettronica became Ducati Energia SpA in the eighties.) Dr. Giuseppe Montano took over as head of Ducati Meccanica SpA and the Borgo Panigale factory was modernized with government assistance. By 1954, Ducati Meccanica SpA had increased production to 120 bikes a day.
The company's offerings have improved and diversified since then.
In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the then fastest 250 cc road bike available, the Mach 1. In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement L-twin (i.e. a 90° V-twin) motorcycles and in 1973 released an L-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the lesser-known Cagiva name (at least outside of Italy). By the time the purchase was completed, Cagiva kept the "Ducati" name on its motorcycles. In 1996, Texas Pacific Group bought a 51% stake in the company for US$325 million then in 1998, bought most of the remaining 49% to become the sole owner of Ducati. In 1999, TPG issued an IPO of Ducati stock and renamed the company Ducati Motor Holding SpA. TPG sold over 65% of its shares in Ducati, leaving TPG the majority shareholder. In December 2005 Ducati returned to Italian ownership with the sale of Texas Pacific's stake (minus one share) to Investindustrial Holdings, the investment fund of Carlo and Andrea Bonomi.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Spanish MotoTrans company licensed Ducati engines and produced motorcycles that, although they incorporated subtle differences, were clearly Ducati-derived. MotoTrans's most notable machine was the 250 cc 24 Horas (Spanish for 24 hours). A 285 cc version of this bike won the Barcelona twenty-four-hour race at the Montjuic circuit for three consecutive years, 1956 to 1958.
Motorcycle designs
Ducati is best known for high performance motorcycles characterized by large capacity four-stroke, 90-degree L-twin engines featuring a desmodromic valve design. Modern Ducatis remain among the dominant performance motorcycles available today partly because of the Desmodromic valve design, which is nearing its 50th year of use. Desmodromic valves are closed with a separate, dedicated cam lobe and lifter instead of the conventional valve springs used in most internal combustion engines. This allows the cams to have a more radical profile, thus opening and closing the valves more quickly without the risk of valve-float which is likely when using a "passive" closing mechanisms under the same conditions.
While most other manufacturers utilize wet-clutches (with the spinning parts bathed in oil) Ducati uses multiplate dry clutches in many of their current motorcycles. The dry clutch eliminates the power loss from oil viscosity drag on the engine even though the engagement may not be as smooth as the oil bath versions, and the clutch plates can wear more rapidly.
