Like many factory engineers before and since, Dr. These would eventually produce the Pantah series, which is the basic architecture of all of Ducati’s present-day models, up until the Panigale. Ignoring all the boardroom shenanigans going on above them, they quietly and efficiently worked away on prototypes. The Utah was the love child of this crazy era, conceived by charismatic designer Fabio Taglioni and his small team of backroom boffins. Meanwhile, the factory went through three managers in as many years. The result was a confusing period of declining sales and rickety motorcycle development that was only retrieved when the 860GT V-twin was redesigned into the Darmah and the belt-driven overhead cam Pantah series arrived in 1979. Let’s build enduro 2-strokes, a futuristic-looking square-case V-twin grand tourer, and then some chain-driven, overhead cam parallel twins and singles. In late 1974, some corporate bright spark decided Ducati should abandon all its established models and replace them with untested, clean-sheet designs that would cover all market segments.įorget the steadily selling overhead-camshaft singles and V-twins aimed primarily at a niche of devoted road riders. But to delve into the reality of all this we need to go back in time to the mid-1970s. Amazed at our luck? Amazed that the factory would hold such an icon out of view? So are we.
Now, nearly 40 years later, we persuaded the Ducati museum to pull it out of the storeroom, dust it down and allow it to be photographed. market, yet it was only ever shown in Europe, and then quietly tucked away into a corner of Ducati’s Bologna factory.
Dubbed the Utah, it was aimed squarely at the U.S. One subplot to the amazing 1970s transformation of the Ducati factory is this soft off-roader.
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