| As I said "Ducati lack direction".
The ST3 may be a good bike Steve, but, the vast majority of the sports touring bike buyers are just not stumping up with the cash, and that's what counts if Ducati are going to stay in business. And, ST4's should be going strong long after you've done your 24k service on them - if you'd have said 124k then I'd be impressed.
Mine (2001 model ST4s) is a belter and I hope it stays that way as I won't be putting my money down on an ST3. (Phil has let me try both the ST3 and Multistrada and they don't do it for me when it comes to putting down 4 to 600 miles in a day very quickly to get from A to B or when in mid gear squirting the gas to overtake a towed caravan on steep alpine pass safely with loads to spare.
The sales figures across all European, US and Japanese markets clearly indicated that Ducati's whole range of bikes have lost their shine with the buying public as both volume and market share has declined. And in my humble opinion, I will be very surprised if the retro bikes (PS/S/GT 1000's) or the Monster's S2R 1000 and S4RS in 2006 will lift the global sales figures.
Jools you are right to touch upon the "styling" fairing change that Ducati did to the ST range - that exercise moved the bikes away from their european visual signature towards a bland asian canvas and did nothing to enhance the "creative" appeal of the ST bike to none Ducatista.
The "testastretta" engine is the way forward together with a new dynamic european fairing plus the re introduction of Ohlins instead of the Showa's/Sachs units; a move back to those wonderful little touches of crafted aluminium stalks for the brake and clutch fluid reservoirs which have been replaced by bits of plastic and a single sided swinging arm to facilitate speedier rear wheel removal plus a carbon fibre rear hugger instead of the latest plastic incarnation - then and only then - will I part with my old '01ST4s and hard cash for another new Ducati.
[Edited on 27-11-2005 by Athelstan]  |