A superb and rare photo of the famous Ducati glass side race transporter truck, as it showed up at the Imola 200 mile race which was ridden on April 23, 1972. Ducati won….

The Ducati Meccanica truck was made years before, and travelled through Italy showcasing Ducati’s mechanical products, like industustrial engines, outboard motors and offcourse…. motorcycles!

The photograph was taken on April 23, 1972. In the truck we see 7 Ducati Formula 750 “Imola 200” desmo racing bikes. They were more then succesfull, scoring an amazing 1-2 victory!

The Imola victory was a magnificent one for Ducati. A crowd of 70,000 people saw Paul Smart on the Ducati win the heavily battled 200 miles race of Imola. Smart’s team mate Bruno Spaggiari finished 2nd on the #9 Ducati.

We have more photographs available of other Ducati production and racing models.

The Ducati 750 Imola Desmo is one of the most famous bikes in the world.  It is best known, and, of course named after, its victory with Paul Smart and Bruno Spaggiari in the 200 mile race at Imola in 1972 – one of the most spectacular in racing history.  Much has been written about the fantastic final lap, which saw Smart and Spaggiari side by side almost all the way to the finishing line, but how this race changed the destiny of the Italian manufacturer has been relatively unexplored.

The win at Imola defined Ducati’s future approach to racing, with the manufacturer focusing its attention almost exclusively on production-derived machines. However, before explaining more about the importance of Paul Smart, Imola and the legendary “Ducati 750 Imola”, we must take a step back in time.

In 1972 Checco Costa bought the 200 Mile formula to Italy and Ducati prepared eight bikes to be ridden by Paul Smart, Bruno Spaggiari, Ermanno Giuliano, and Alan Dunscombe.  The bikes had production frames and engines, but were prepared, as usual, in a very short time.  Most of this work, however, probably still goes unnoticed, as it was concerned with the smallest details: wherever possible, each part of the bike was painstakingly filed down and lightened.  In addition, new Dellorto carburetors with 40 mm choke tubes and accelerator pumps arrived just in time, providing a perfect supply of fuel for the big twin-cylinder, which delivered 80 hp at 8,500 rpm.  At Imola, Spaggiari reached the finish line with his gas tank almost empty and so could not snatch the victory from Smart.

The Imola racers featured Ducati’s famous 4-stroke longitudinal split 90° V twin engine. The crankcase cylinder and cylinderheads were cast in light alloy; the cylinders had cast-iron liners. Bore and stroke was 80 x 74.4 mm. Cylinder capacity was 747.95 cc. The racers had a compression ratio of 10:1. Ducati was already famous for its desmodromic single overhead camshafts, driven by bevel-gears. It was also present on the Imola racing machines. Each head had two valves. The air cooled engine featured wet sump lubrication. Two Dell’orto PHF 40 carburetors with accelerator pump fed the fuel mixture in the combustion chambers. A twin-plug contact-breaker ignition system was present. The Imola racers had a five-speed gearbox and primary drive by gears, final drive was by chain. A wet multi-plate clutch was also present. The engine delivered a power output of 82 hp at 9,000 r.p.m. Enough for a topspeed of 156.25 mph (250 km/h)!

Underneath some more information on these incredible machines:

Frame - chassis: Duplex open-cradle tubular-steel frame

Front suspension: Marzocchi telescopic hydraulic front forks with raked pins

Rear suspension: Swinging-arm rear suspension with two Ceriani 310-mm shocks

Front brake: Twin 280-mm disks with Lockheed calipers

Rear brake: 229-mm disk with Lockheed caliper

Front tyre: Borrani light alloy rims, Dunlop KR Tires, 3.25 x 18

Rear tyre: Borrani light alloy rims, Dunlop KR Tires, 3.5 x 18

Fuel tank: Fiberglass fuel tank with 24 liters capacity

Length: 2,018 mm

Wheelbase: 1,530 mm

Rake: 60 mm

Weight: 360 pounds (163 kg)

Amazingly, these Ducati 750cc desmodromic V-twin machines were totally new, it was the first time they had their race outing. In a long battle Smart and Spaggiari beat the heavy competition of MV Agusta and Giacomo Agostini, three works Moto Guzzi’s, four works BSA and Triumph Triples, three works Norton’s and 2 works Honda’s… An astonishing feat for a new roadracer! It was an amazing day in Ducati history and it brought once again well deserved fame to Fabio Taglioni’s extraordinary desmo V-twin design!

The Ducati 750 ‘s were often used in production based racing on both sides of the Atlantic. In the early 1970’s, long distance racing was extremely popular in Europe, especially Italy. These events were responsible for the quick gaining popularity of the heavier sports motorcycle, like the Ducati 750 SS, the Moto Guzzi V7 Sport, the Benelli 650 Tornado, the BMW R 90 S Daytona and the Laverda SFC 750; but also the Japanese sports motorcycles like the Kawasaki 350, 500 and 750 triples, but also heavy four strokes like the Honda CB 750 Four. Riders that would make world fame, like Franco Uncini and Marco Lucchinelli, all participated in these races before they made the steps to the Grand Prix World Championship racing scene.

Today, the Ducati Sport Classics models like the PaulSmart 1000, the Sport 1000 and the GT 1000, pay all directly tribute to the Imola era and the wonderful Ducati bikes that came from it!

This victory in Imola is regarded as the most classic victory Ducati ever scored.

The Ducati motorcycle factory has an old and interesting history. In 1926, three brothers, Adriano, Marcello and Bruno Ducati, founded Societa Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components, becoming successful enough by 1935 to construct a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target for Allied bombing. Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale. In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 60 cc bike weighing 98 lb (44 kg) with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mm carburetor giving just under 200 mpg (85 km/L). Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL". When the market moved toward larger motorcycles, Ducati management decided to respond, making an impression at an early-1952 Milan show, introducing their 65TS cycle and Cruiser (a four-stroke motor scooter). Despite being described as the most interesting new machine at the 1952 show, the Cruiser was not a great success, and only a few thousand were made over a two-year period before the model ceased production. In 1953, management split the company into two separate entities, Ducati Meccanica SpA and Ducati Elettronica, in acknowledgment of its diverging motorcycle and electronics product lines. Ducati Elettronica became Ducati Energia SpA in the eighties. Dr. Giuseppe Montano took over as head of Ducati Meccanica SpA and the Borgo Panigale factory was modernized with government assistance. By 1954, Ducati Meccanica SpA had increased production to 120 bikes a day. In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the then fastest 250 cc road bike available, the Mach 1. In the 1970s Ducati began producing large-displacement L-twin (i.e. a 90° V-twin) motorcycles and in 1973, released an L-twin with the trademarked desmodromic valve design. In 1985, Cagiva bought Ducati and planned to rebadge Ducati motorcycles with the lesser-known Cagiva name (at least outside of Italy). From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Spanish company MotoTrans licensed Ducati engines and produced motorcycles that, although they incorporated subtle differences, were clearly Ducati-derived. MotoTrans's most notable machine was the 250 cc 24 Horas (Spanish for 24 hours). Ducati is best known for high performance motorcycles characterized by large capacity four-stroke, V-twin (90° twin-cylinder) engines featuring a desmodromic valve design. Modern Ducatis remain among the dominant performance motorcycles available today partly because of the desmodromic valve design, which is nearing its 50th year of use. Desmodromic valves are closed with a separate, dedicated cam lobe and lifter instead of the conventional valve springs used in most internal combustion engines in consumer vehicles. This allows the cams to have a more radical profile, thus opening and closing the valves more quickly without the risk of valve-float, which causes a loss of power, that is likely when using a "passive" closing mechanism under the same conditions. While most other manufacturers utilize wet clutches (with the spinning parts bathed in oil) Ducati uses multiplate dry clutches in many of their current motorcycles. The dry clutch eliminates the power loss from oil viscosity drag on the engine even though the engagement may not be as smooth as the oil bath versions, and the clutch plates can wear more rapidly. The chief designer of most Ducati motorcycles in the 1950s was the late Fabio Taglioni (1920-2001). His designs ranged from the small single-cylinder machines that were successful in the Italian 'street races' to the large-capacity twins of the 1980s. Ducati introduced the Pantah in 1979; its engine was updated in the 1990s in the Ducati SuperSport (SS) series. All modern Ducati engines are derivatives of the Pantah, which uses a toothed belt to actuate the engine's valves. Taglioni used the same Cavallino Rampante as identified with the Ferrari brand on his Ducati motorbikes. Ferrari had chosen this emblem of courage and daring as a sign of respect and admiration for Francesco Baracca, a heroic World War I fighter pilot that died during an air raid in 1918.

This is a very nice and very rare non period photo that reflects a wonderful era of Ducati’s motorcycle history in a wonderful way. This is your rare chance to own this photo, therefore it is printed in a nice large format of ca. 8" x 12" (ca. 20 x 30 cm). It makes it perfectly suitable for framing!