Since first seeing images of a Ducati 750GT in 1973 I’ve loved the look of the early big twins from Bologna.
Some years later I was standing outside Coburn & Hughes’ Luton motorcycle emporium in Crawley Road debating whether to part exchange my RD350 for a genuine 750SS. In silver and pale turquoise, the once hugely vaunted sports bike had rapidly become yesterday’s news. It wasn’t exactly cheap but I reckoned I might just possibly have been able to make the necessary payments on HP finance. Truth be told, the silver-tongued salesman had originally tried to get me hooked on a low-mileage 860GT or its makeover 860GTS cousin but, quite frankly, I simply didn’t get the new square-case motor or the odd styling.
There was talk of a transformed so-called 900 Darmah with all-new bodywork on the horizon but this was going to be monetarily well out of my league as a jumped-up laboratory technician. Having a bad attack of reality-induced petulance I threw a leg over the Yamaha and went home to sulk! It wasn’t long before Coburn & Hughes relocated to their famous Park Street address and started punting out somewhat lasciviously crafted posters of Ducatis and Guzzis bedecked by provocatively dressed models. The Darmah featured a bouffant-ed blond lass in a gold cat-suit… as if the Darmah really needed any form of enhancement! Muggins here was well and truly hooked (on the bike) and to this day the Darmah remains my
