The return of Ducati to the single-cylinder motocross and enduro scene in 2024 dictates a look in the rear-view mirror of history, to back when the famous Italian sports bike manufacturer last previously dabbled in this sector.
Lots of famous makes have skeletons in the cupboard, models they’d rather you didn’t know they ever made. Like the 50cc moped and 98cc scooters that MV Agusta produced in the 1950s, or Moto Guzzi’s three-wheeled delivery truck – or indeed the smallest Norton ever sold, the overweight, unreliable Jubilee 250cc twin. Or, or… but you get the picture. So how about the last-ever Ducati single-cylinder road-going motorcycle, of which 3846 were built from 1975 to 1979, which was also the first Ducati motorcycle with a left-foot gearchange? It wasn’t just the fact the 125 Regolarità and its later Six Days variant represented the Bologna factory’s only serious attempt to target the off-road market, but it was that contradiction in terms – a Ducati two-stroke!
It’s true that in the 1950s and 60s, Ducati had made several eminently forgettable 50-100cc two-stroke models, but by 1975 when the 125 Regolarità was launched in the marketplace, Ducati had moved on, and was now well established as the leading Italian four-stroke performance brand, with a twin-cylinder range derived from Paul Smart’s V-twin Imola 200-winner. The idea that it should ever have tried to carve out a slice of the then-booming 125cc enduro market for 16-year-olds occupied by 23 other makes from Ancilotti to Zündapp, seems very, well, short-sighted, let’s say.
Mind you, bureaucrats have never been much good at running motorcycle companies, and since 1967 Ducati had formed part of the Italian government’s EFIM (Ente Partecipazioni e Finanziamento Industria Manifatturiera) state-owned conglomerate responsible for the day-to-day operations of the company and 114 others within Italy. However, it had the good fortune to see Fredmano Spairani appointed as its CEO in 1969, a professional manager with an open mind as well as some flair, who listened, learned and acted on what he was told. Ducati progettista Fabio Taglioni and his colleagues convinced Spairani of the values of a product-led strategy based on the large capacity 750cc four-strokes that BSA-Triumph and Honda had just launched, underpinned by a factory race programme, and that’s how the family of 750cc V-twin Ducatis that debuted in 1971, came about.
Unfortunately for Ducati, Spairani’s success in spearheading the
