| Regarding the Supermono:
From an interview last year with Ducati President Federico Minoli:
Question:
"Why won't you make the Supermono with lights, for the street? Especially as you can add value, and performance, by fitting a supercharger which has been proven to work effectively on single-cylinder motorcycles, represents an avant garde form of proven technology that on two wheels would be unique to Ducati, and would allow you to position the model advantageously pricewise."
Answer:
"From my point of view, this is a matter of priorities. We are a small company, so we have to choose what's most important. Do we develop a single? Do we make a four? Do we produce a three-valve air-cooled twin? Or how about a triple? I don't think we can afford to bring too many kinds of engines through to production, because although you're correct when you say that we've done all the hard work in actually designing a prototype Supermono, from there to actually rolling the first engine off the production line will cost us approximately five million Euros. Can we really expect to turn that much profit from such a product? That's what we have to ask ourselves. I'm not going to take this company down the road of over-investing as compared to the size that we have, and the profit we want to generate. So - sorry!"  |