I am sure it will. Thanks for the update. If he got the info from a dealer meeting (albeit through the employee who attended) then it I suppose is safe to assume that other dealers (more importantly the UK dealers) willalso be party to the same information soon. I will have to take my thumbscrews down to my local dealer in the near future and see if I can't extract some more out of them too !!

Now that does sound interesting. Wonder what px I'll get on the 999 with 16k on the clock and a 52 reg... Just hope the mirrors work and the tanks larger...

Haha, you and me both, mines got 2k less than yours so reckon I'll be fine (joke).

Glad I sold my 999S when I did as methinks come November the ass is going to fall out the market for secondhand prices IMHO. If I was sure the replacement was going to be the looker we all hope for I would be selling mine now before the specualtion becomes knowledge to all and sundry

So is there an estimate release date yet, or an unveiling ?

Not from MCN, but it's the 1st time I've seen these piccies:-

I think the second of these will be closer to the mark

official release 14th november at the Milan bike show.
I will be there to see

I hope not as it looks like a poor man's Desmosedici with the rest resembling a lightly modified existing back end to the current 999. Besides which the picture is "back to front" unless Ducati know something we don't. I prefer the first of the two if I had to make a choice but I am not too keen on the CBR600 front end resemblance. Much of the original criticism of the 999 focused on the rear end of the bike and that awful untidy exhaust and underseat area, as well as the exposed rear cylinder, which on the 916 was neatly disguised by the sides of the airbox, the lines flowing from the lower edge of the tail unit down the airbox and across the split in the side fairings down towards the nose. Claudio Domenicali's interview states that as well as taking cues from the 916, the new bike will involve much more flowing lines and do away with awkward contours, and frankly none of the new artist impressions convey that. The raptors and rockets pictures are some months old now and look like a real lash up. I also hope they dispense with the controversial side air deflectors as well, as these do nothing for the lines of the bike IMHO. The only decent picture is the 1200R mock up (which was originally published in the German "Motorrad" magazine). Any indications that R & R might publish ,seem as far fetched as the MCN comical efforts. The spy shots published in Italian "Motosprint" magazine appear to offer little in the way of the final form of the bike, but in conclusion the only certainty we know of is the mechanical configuration which will be I imagine very close to 900Man's sourced info. Speculation reigns at present but it doesn't hurt to do so. With a little over ten weeks to go to EICMA 2006 in Milan, my guess is that the bike will have to break cover soon for final shakedown testing and it's only then, assuming there are some keen eyed snappers around at the time, we will finally get to see something resembling the final offering before the covers officially come off in Milan.

The "Motorrad" picture of the Ducati 1200R, is arguably the best computer generated image we have seen so far. With a restyling of the nose to liken it more to the Desmosedici and a single sided swing arm on the back, plus some reworking on the sides to perhaps incorporate a more enclosing airbox, to cover the exposed rear cylinder and allow the lines to flow up and back towards the tail unit, is much more preferable to the half baked MCN pictures and those published in "Motociclismo".

I hope with those kind of features, if you can imagine them grafted on to the pic of the 1200R, will more closely resemble something along the lines of what we might catch a glimpse of in the press over the next few weeks, as opposed to bored Adobe Photoshop artists efforts. We will see. 900 Man, you realise you have a duty now to email and post up the first pictures, when you are in Milan and beat MCN to it !!!!