The Best Ducati's Ever Made [2023 Edition]

Why We Picked It:

By the time the 1970s had rolled around, Ducati was well into their stride in producing small displacement sport and racing bikes. Then came the Japanese with models like Kawasaki's Z1 and Honda's CB650 changing what a sport motorcycle meant: Big engine, big power, big fun.

After a rather rapid development cycle lasting just over 16 months under the now legendary Dr. Fabio Taglioni, the Ducati 750GT was ready. It would overshadow its Japanese competitors by having a huge 748cc V-twin, but canted over on its side so that one cylinder fired horizontally and one fired vertically. Because the American's were associated with the V-twin name, Ducati decided to call their layout an L-twin, making it the first of their bikes to bear that designation.

It was a pretty powerful bike too, with 60 HP @ 8,000 RPM, a max speed of 124 MPH, and that weighed just a hair over 440 lbs wet. Keep in mind, in the 1970s, some racing bikes didn't have that much power. Understandably, it sold extremely well, and was also the basis for the 750 Imola Desmo race bike, which placed first and second in the 1972 200 Miles of Imola.

Why We Picked It:

If there is one thing that Ducati is famous for in racing, it's that their bikes have immense power to catapult them out of corners and down the next straight at speed. For the 2006 FIM MotoGP season, the Italians presented their GP06 Desmosedici model, which caused quite the hype train to form as it absolutely blitzed Winter testing with some of the best cornering and handling yet for the 21st century.

In fact, the GP06 created so much fanfare that Ducati decided to make a "homologation special" for their customers, the 2006 Desmosedici RR. While it wasn't exactly the same as the MotoGP bike, it shared the same ultralight swingarm, magnesium wheels, carbon fiber fairings in Ducati racing livery, Brembo brakes, and was in fact more powerful than the racing bike!

That power came from a 1,198cc 90-degree V4 that thundered out 198 HP to the rear wheel, back when 150 HP was considered too powerful for a superbike on the road! It also is one of the few bikes that came from the factory with the shifter set up like a GP bike, flicking up for first, then down to go up the gears.

It was not cheap at $72,000 MSRP, and only 1,500 were ever made, but that price included priority servicing at any Ducati authorized dealership with all fees covered, a special locking bike cover, and a racing kit that included an unbaffled, track-only exhaust system. Not bad if you had the money and were a rabid Ducatista!

Why We Picked It:

While Ducati as a motorcycle company was started in 1949, Ducati as a company started much earlier in 1926 as a manufacturer of vacuum tubes, transistors, and parts for radios. It provided military radios for the Italian regime in World War 2, and despite their main factory in the Borgo Panigale district of Bologna, Italy, being bombed to hell by the Allies, they managed to rebuild and continue business.

After the war, Ducati began selling Cucciolo engines from SIATA, little combustion engines that were attached to bicycles to make them motorized. By the time 1949 rolled around, they had sold over 200,000 of the engines, and had started to produce their own Cucciolo single cylinder engines. They decided then that if they have the engine, why not make a bicycle that was perfectly suited to it?

While in essence a Caproni-style bicycle fitted with a Cucciolo engine, the engine and frame were made in and assembled at Ducati's factory, making it their first official motorized bicycle. It was the start of a great legacy, but at the time, even five years after the war ended, Italy was still in shambles, and cheap, effective, and easy to use transportation was vital to the rebuilding effort.

Basically, the Ducati 60 could be bought for pennies, ridden all over the country, be used by couriers and businessmen alike, and was one of the many bits of glue that slowly patched Italy up.

Why We Picked It:

For any true Ducatista, they don't even need to read this part to understand why the 916 is here. For everyone else, read on!

The Ducati 916 was not quite a homologation special of the Ducati 888 race bike, despite having the same body shape and even the same frame. What it is most famous for, however, is that it was the first street legal Ducati superbike with the Desmoquattro L-twin racing engine.

To explain the significance and why it is one of the greatest Ducati's ever, for almost its entire history, the Italians had been making engines for their streetbikes with two valves per cylinder. They had started to produce four-valve-per-cylinder sport bikes in the mid-1980s, but they were much safer versions, not the raw beast that beat at the heart of race bikes,

The Desmoquattro was designed to go racing, starting in the 1986 season, and was thought too complex and unreliable to put into a street-going sport bike. However, as the years passed, the engine proved to be extremely reliable, and kept getting bumped up in displacement until it reached 916cc in 1993, and Ducati decided to give it a go in a street bike.

The other reason that the 916 is one of the most desirable Ducati's ever is that it was the first special edition that was made under the guidance of Massimo Tamburini, one of the greatest motorcycle designers of the 1980s and 1990s. Every line and curve, every nut and bolt, even the way the fuel tank was shaped had purpose. Even the single-sided swingarm, of which this was the first Ducati to have one, was designed to make wheel changes in endurance races easier and faster.

It was the perfect combination, and was so well received that Ayrton Senna, friend of Claudio Castiglioni, was enchanted by it. Just before his untimely death at Imola in 1994, Senna signed off on allowing a special special edition, the 916 Senna, to be made. These days, if you can find one in mint condition, expect to pay over $100,000 at auction or in a private sale.

Why We Picked It:

The term Super Sport, by the 1980s shortened to supersport, had been applied to almost any sportbike out there by the time the mid-1980s arrived. It was so popular a term that it was understood to denote an entire sub-class of sport bikes, and many thought that it was the best type of sport bike you could buy.

Then, in 1985, Suzuki released the GSX-R750. What shocked the world about the first Gixxer was that it produced an at the time unbelievable 100 HP. It is important to mention the GSX-R series, as the words "super bike" began to get used in magazines and TV programs.

Ducati, having just been bought out by Cagiva, was given the mission of producing the world's best supersports, and to get the brand winning races again. Thus, the Ducati 851 began development.

Originally a race bike, it was the first Ducati to have a fully liquid cooled engine, the first with four valves per cylinder, and the first to have the very expensive and rare technology of fuel injection used on its L-twin heart. Ducati collaborated with the famous Cosworth Engineering out of the UK to develop the cylinder heads, and had the four valves sit a 40 degrees, the maximum a desmodromic valve could be brought in to.

The result was a race bike that produced 93 HP, and had moderate success at the track, with a pole position at the 1986 Misano Grand Prix, and a pole position in 1987 in the World SBK season. By the time the road going 851 Strada was ready, it had been developed further to produce 105 HP, 5 more than the Gixxer, and it garnered a ton of attention. It was so popular that it was produced for four years, from 1987 to 1991, while the racing model was reworked to have the first Desmoquattro race engine fitted in 1988.

Looking back at it now, the common saying is that while Suzuki may have invented the superbike, Ducati perfected it, and has been making superbikes ever since.

Why We Picked It:

While we think of 500cc engines in 2023 as entry level or beginner friendly, they were exceedingly rare in the 1960s. Only a few very expensive motorcycles from BMW or the big V-twins from America had that displacement or higher, and the far more common displacement was 250cc.

In 1964, Ducati brought out what could arguably be called their first supersport, although the 750SS from 1974 more correctly deserves that title. What made the Mach 1 so important was that from its 250cc motor, it was able to produce an at the time astounding 28 HP.

It did this using a two valve, four stroke single cylinder engine with desmodromic valves, which allowed it to be revved much higher than most other engines of the time. This was important, as peak power came on at 8,500 RPM, which was when engines in other bikes would be starting to gasp and wheeze or be beyond their redlines.

The Mach 1 had a decently aerodynamic shape for a sport bike of the time, but it was when an owner got the bike out on a motorway, opened the right wrist, and clicked up through the al-new 5 speed wet plate clutch transmission that they found the speedometer needle creeping into triple digits.

Flat out, with the rider tucked down over the tank and their knees squeezing into the tank for all they were worth, the Mach 1 could hit 106 MPH. It was the first Ducati production motorcycle to do so, and that earns it a spot as one of the greatest Ducati's ever made.

Why We Picked It:

For the longest time, Ducati's have been referred to as "The Ferrari of Motorcycles." Well, it appears that that moniker was wrong, as they are most definitely the Lamborghini of Motorcycles now... quite literally.

The collaboration between the two companies formed as a celebration of Lamborghini's STO, a barely road legal track-oriented version of the already bonkers Huracan. What makes the Streetfighter V4 Lamborghini different than the other Streetfighter V4 models is that almost every part, fairing, paint spec, and wheel has had a visit to Lamborghini Corse, their racing department, and tweaked if not outright redesigned.

The wheels are bespoke to only this model, and are superlight magnesium. The winglets and air intakes on either side of the bike have been reshaped to resemble the STO's rear wing and air intakes. A bespoke, fully titanium exhaust from Akrapovic, who also provide the exhaust for the STO, makes sure the bike is heard. The pillion seat cover has strakes added, to resemble the strakes over the front wheels of the STO to reduce wheel well pressure.

There are 630 units allotted of the standard V4 Lamborghini, all of which come in Lamborghini's signature Citrea green, with Dac orange highlights and the number 63 emblazoned on the tank to celebrated the year of Lamborghini's founding. A further 63 units have been reserved for anyone that buys an STO and wants to have the Streetfighter V4 Lamborghini match their paint choice, driver number, and the like.

Being a special edition, and also being worked on by Lamborghini Corse, the Streetfighter V4 Lamborghini is understandly shockingly expensive, at $68,000.

Why We Picked It:

If you look back through pictures of motorcycles up until around 1990, one thing is evident about almost all of them: They have some type of fairing. The only ones that didn't were known a "Standard" motorcycles, and were almost always a Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM). Even then, they were not referred to as anything other than "sport standard."

Then, as a styling exercise in 1992, Ducati took one of the bikes they were developing, ripped off all its fairings to the point that the entire frame was exposed and only the fuel tank and pillion seat had any kind of body panel, and asked what people thought about it. The name of that styling exercise? "Il Monstro," or The Monster.

People all over the sport bike world loved it, so in 1993, the Ducati Monster 900 was let out of its cage. It came with a 904cc L-twin desmodromic engine, punching out 73 HP and 56 lbs-ft of torque. Because it was completely stripped of its fairings, it was referred to as a "naked" motorcycle.

As it had no weight up high, and the bike weighed a scant 408 lbs wet, it was immensely agile and became an instant hit with the canyon carving crowd. They love their new Monster so much that the term "sport naked" started to be used, as it was literally an undressed supersport.

The term caught on, and within a year of the Ducati's release, the new class of sport naked and hyper naked bikes was established, with the Monster 900 as the founder of the class. It also inspired some riders to tear the fairings off their own bikes, and can be considered as significantly aiding in creating the streetfighter class of bikes as well.

The Monster has stood the test of time, as this year it is celebrating it's 30th anniversary as a Ducati model with an ultra-light limited edition, the Monster 30th Anniversario.