The start of it all

For the past 67 years Ducati’s USP (unique selling proposition) has been the closeness of its customer products to the bikes its factory riders successfully race with at the highest level. Even if today it bravely seeks to compete with three of the four Japanese manufacturers in MotoGP racing, like the fourth, Kawasaki, Ducati’s natural sporting home is Superbike racing, with its riders aboard evolved versions of bikes its customers can buy in their friendly local Ducati dealer.

It’s been that way ever since May 1954, when progettista Fabio Taglioni began work at the state-owned Ducati factory in Bologna, then considered to be at the lower end of the plethora of Italian manufacturers competing to meet the need for personal transportation in postwar Italy, with Ducati’s prosaic range comprising the Cucciolo clip-on moped engine, Cruiser scooter and various 100cc pushrod-engined models.

But Ducati’s president/CEO since 1952, Dr Giuseppe Montano, was a convivial and dynamic leader, whose far-sightedness was largely responsible for the success it enjoyed in future years. Under Montano, the reconstruction was completed of Ducati’s Borgo Panigale factory, which had been bombed by USAF aircraft a decade earlier while under German occupation, and equipped with the latest in precision machinery – all ironically largely funded by American Marshall Plan money. While a Government appointee, Montano was also a keen motorcyclist, who recognised that the sport-mad Italian public bought in the shops what won on the racetrack – call it the Monday morning syndrome.

Before hiring Taglioni, he’d publicly stated Ducati had to go racing successfully to acquire the sporting prestige that other older companies like Guzzi and Gilera, let alone more recent marques like MV and Mondial, already possessed through winning races and titles. But, unlike them, Montano insisted that Ducati’s competition bikes should ultimately be based on its street range, instead of comprising exotic racers quite unlike what it sold to the public. For Taglioni, by now equally passionate for racing, working under such a man was hugely inspiring, and rewarding. Thanks to Montano’s imaginative approach, and Taglioni’s creative talent, Ducati became famous for creating sports-orientated production models with the same specification as those its factory riders raced with. Nothing’s changed!

Gran Sport

Hence Taglioni’s first task at Ducati was to establish the seed corn of a range of sporting singles, and in November 1954 the 100 Gran Sport appeared, universally nicknamed the ‘Marianna’ in Italy because this was a