In 1974 Ducati built 401 examples in its factory race shop of what auction sale prices now exceeding $A300,000 say is the most desirable of all the roadbike models it’s created. I’ve owned three of them, including the one I will race in the Formula 750 event at the upcoming Goodwood Members Meeting in the UK. That’s the green-frame 750SS, Ducati’s first-ever desmo V-twin model, a close cousin to the factory V-twin F750 racer with which Paul Smart gave himself the perfect 29th birthday present by famously winning the Imola 200.
So that means my 750SS will be celebrating its 50th birthday this year – aptly coinciding with my personal 50th anniversary of a racing career, after I first took to the track in 1974 with a 250 Ducati single.
After passing the test to get my motorcycle licence on a humble Ducati 160, I’d ramped up to a Suzuki GT750 two-stroke triple while waiting patiently for the long-promised customer replica of Smartie’s Imola-winner to become available. More than two years passed with no sign of such a bike until finally, in late July 1974, I got a call from Mick Walker Motorcycles to collect the bike.
I can still remember the skip of my heartbeat when I saw the eye candy that a 750SS is in the metal for the first time – and it was mine. Well, as soon as I’d written Mick a cheque for £1600 ($A3100) ‘less fuel tank’, and paid him £79 in
