Showstopper

This is just showbiz, thought the many fervent admirers of what Ducati intended to be a one-off showstopper – surely we can’t ever buy one? But two decades ago, the Italian firm was so overwhelmed by the response to Pierre Terblanche’s MH900e showbike, a decision was quickly made to build a limited-edition, individually-numbered run of 1000 examples.

It soon became clear this’d be insufficient to meet demand, so by the time the customer version was unveiled at the Bologna Motor Show in December 1999, Ducati had doubled that number. The MH900e was the first motorcycle to be sold exclusively over the Internet. Each of the 2000 bikes were sold at the same 15,000 euro price irrespective of the country it ended up in, and were all accounted for within hours of the dedicated website going live at 00.01 hours