| Err.. let me see... knee-jerk reaction... I prefer the 916 to the 999 so it must be Tamburini, yes?
No; get real folks. The question is not who designs the prettiest bikes but who is the best person to be design chief at Ducati.
I've just come back from a lunchtime walk thinking about this and was going to make some of the same points as Jools. Tamburini designed one bike for Ducati and to the best of my knowledge has designed one bike since, one even more gorgeous to my eyes than the 916. So output of two bikes in what, 15 years?
One of the roles of the chief designer has to be to make bikes that sell. Regardless of whether you prefer the 916 style to the 999, Terblanche has designed or updated pretty much the whole current Ducati range, excluding the monster, covering sports, sports tourers, hyper-sports, the sport classics and, err, whatever you class the Multistrada to be. So that's best part of ten bikes, plus the Supermono, which most people seem to rate over the 916. And they sell.
It's all very well designing beauty - slowly - but compare the current state of MV and Ducati. If Tamburini was still in charge at Ducati, would Ducati even still exist? Most of you probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to buy a Ducati without Terreblanche at the helm.
Terreblanche every time. One of the few subjects I feel strongly enough about to put my head above the parapet and post about....
still prefer the 916 to the 999 though!  |