In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno Cavalieri Ducati; founded Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components, becoming successful enough, in 1935 he was able to construct a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target for Allied bombing.
Meanwhile, at the small Turinese firm SIATA (Societa Italiana per Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie), Aldo Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale.
In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike weighing 98 lb (44 kg) with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mm carburetor giving just under 200 mpg-US (1.2 L/100 km; 240 mpg-imp). Ducati soon dropped the Cucciolo name in favor of "55M" and "65TL".
Crutchlow has joined Ducati this season after two years at Tech 3 Yamaha. Ducati last won a MotoGP race with Casey Stoner at Phillip Island in October 2010, and last put a rider on the podium when Valentino Rossi finished second at Misano in September '12. A Ducati statement said that this year's Desmosedici GP14 featured "revised aerodynamics, both in the front and rear fairings, in addition to improved rider ergonomics and more possibilities for chassis adjustment, as well as several new electronic solutions" compared to last year's GP13. But Crutchlow said few changes were evident on track after the first day of 2014 testing at Sepang on Tuesday.
When Valentino Rossi arrived at Ducati in 2011 most Ducati fans had high expectations of the pairing of the most passionate brand in motorcycle racing with the 9 times World champion. As the excuses mounted and the results failed to come, many fans turned toxic blaming Rossi for Ducati’s woes. With the close of the 2013 MotoGP season last weekend in Valencia, we finally get some perspective on just how far behind Ducati is in the race for competitiveness and how it wasn’t Rossi’s fault after all.
The mathematics is pretty simple. Andrea Dovizioso finished his first depressing season with the factory Ducati squad on 140 points, one more than Rossi managed in 2011 and 23 less than his fellow Italian realised in 2012. By contrast, although Valentino may have been disappointed that his return to Yamaha didn’t always put him up at the sharp end of the field, he scored 237 points this year to finish 4th in the title race behind the Spanish trio.
Ducati - Official Website
Ducati - Wikipedia
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