The launch at last month’s EICMA Show of the Hypermotard 698 Mono, powered by the all-new Superquadro Mono engine, represents Ducati’s first single-cylinder customer model in exactly 30 years, since the Supermono road racer made its track debut in 1993.
Three decades after it first appeared at the 1992 Cologne Show, the Ducati Supermono doesn’t just remain one of the most sophisticated and innovative single-cylinder motorcycles – even compared to the firm’s latest arrival – it’s also become the rarest and most collectible customer Ducati ever, with just 67 built in total and 30-year-old examples now changing hands for six-figure sums.
The brainchild of former Ducati engineering guru Massimo Bordi, who conceived its unique engine, it was also later 999 and Multistrada designer Pierre Terblanche’s first Ducati project. And supervising development of the frame and acting as project leader for the whole Supermono venture was none other than current Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali in his first job with the company straight out of university. That meant he was also my race manager, as I was chosen by Bordi to race a factory-backed customer bike in Europe, America, Japan and Australia against the Japanese and other Euro singles then dominating the flourishing Sound of Singles (SoS) class, later rebranded as Supermono by the FIM.
Those 67 examples were built and sold in two versions, the first 44 coming in 1993 with a 549cc capacity, the second 23 in 1995 bored out to 572cc. All incorporated the same horizontal-cylinder desmoquattro format derived from Bordi’s World Superbike champion 888cc V-twin engine, with the upright cylinder replaced by a blind housing containing an articulated counter-balancer. This proved so effective that the engine was safe up to 11,000rpm – some going for a 500cc four-stroke single. BMW later
