Museo Ducati Book Review

For Ducati fans, visiting the Italian motorcycle manufacturer's official Museum in Borgo Panigale, Bologna is like coming home and each year a steady stream of owners and enthusiasts arrive to soak up the spirit of competition that made Ducati a legendary name for more than 60 years. Now, the Museo Ducati book from David Bull Publishing offers readers the next best thing to visiting the famous Museum.

One of my largest Ducati regrets is not getting to the museum in Borgo Panigale.  Despite living in Atlanta, Georgia for 7 years with frequent day job visits to Milano, I never managed to go the relatively short distance to Bologna.  If like me you've never been, then Museo Ducati is certainly a book to whet your appetite whilst you make plans to see the real thing.

Publication author, Chris Jonnum, and photographer, Peter Harholdt, profile 25 of the greatest racing motorcycles on display at the Museum. The tour begins with a 1947 Ducati Cucciolo motorised bicycle and concludes with the 2010 Ducati Desmosedici GP10 ridden by MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden.

From the forward by Museo Ducati curator Livio Lodi to the heartfelt introduction by the author, the reader is immersed in the culture of Ducati that celebrates its family (customers) as much as the machines that allowed the creation of the stories that make Ducati so evocative.

"We at Ducati like to say we don't have customers or fans; we have family. As a Ducati employee and a native Bolognese, I always feel at home when I come across Ducati motor-cycles and riders during my travels; it's like seeing the flag of one's home country in a store window, or hearing a familiar language or accent in a train.  It is my belief and hope that ducatisti experience a similar sensation when they visit the museum - their museum."

• Livio Lodi

Most ducatisti know of the remarkable story of Mike Hailwood's TT victory for Ducati on the 900 Super Sport after 11 years in retirement and of course this bike features but we are also treated to more obscure motorcycles and stories that are nevertheless just as important and fascinating.

There is famed engineer Fabio Taglioni's first design for Ducati, the Gran Sport Marianna, and the first ever Desmo racer that just missed out on GP championship glory in 1958.  It would be another decade before this technology would be deployed on the road.  Also celebrated is the 1971 500GP V-twin, a premier racing class failure but a prelude to a period of almost uninterrupted road and racing success in with the belt driven L-twins that that this racer heralded.

The other famous stories are all in there, Paul Smart's Imola victory that put V-twin Ducatis on the map, Raymond Roche's booming 851 Superbike which brought the company's first World Superbike title,  Loris Capirossi's startlingly instantly competitive Desmosedici GP3 and of course Casey Stoner's screaming 800cc MotoGP World Championship winner.

Harholdt captures the essence of each one of the unique machines in stunning detail with photographs taken in a specially prepared studio at Ducati's headquarters in Bologna, Italy. His carefully composed images reveal each model's overall design as well as details of engines, frames, suspension and other components. Detailed text by Ducati Team Press Officer, Chris Jonnum, explains each motorcycle's contribution to Ducati's long and rich heritage of racing success.

The story of course starts with the Cucciolo (Puppy), the clip on micromotor kit for bicycles that sold in the hundreds of thousands eventually spawning complete motor bicycles and even racers. The story of each of the 25 models highlighted is significantly enhanced by the photography.  Harholdt seems to have captured an almost intimate moment with each of his subjects so that their patina and story comes across, from the hammer marks in a handmade factory racer tank to the simple elastic restraints that hold on a toolkit to the extra control cables that are pre-routed to allow for a quick change in the event of a failure.

The book's large 9” x 11” format and quality design add to the impact of the images, and for the benefit of readers in Ducati's home market, the text is rendered in both English and Italian. The price of US$39.95 or €32.90 in Europe (£26.99 in the UK) makes Museo Ducati affordable to a wide range of enthusiasts. Available via Shop.Ducati.com, the new book can also be purchased through book stores, specialty motoring booksellers or directly from the publisher by visiting the David Bull Publishing website at Bullpublishing.com.

Museo Ducati is the kind of book you will read cover to cover and then keep returning to, dropping in for a coffee every so often to marvel at how a single small Italian company has managed to produce so many wonderful motorcycles that have become the centre point of so many amazing motorcycle stories.  Now time to check the prices of flights to Misano.

David Bull Publishing provided a copy of Museo Ducati for Review

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