Ducati Museum

Paul here....about a week ago Emily was gone for the day, and wouldn't you know it my little appointment book was clear.  So, I decided to take the ol' number 13 bus up to Borgo Panigale.

What's in Borgo Panigale, you ask?  Why, it's the home of Ducati, of course.

The bus ride was interesting.  As it was fairly early in the morning, I spotted several Ducati employees.  It was easy to pick them out, as they were all sporting several items of company swag - Ducati messenger bags, soft lunch boxes....one woman even had bright red pants.  They seem to be proud of where they work, actually all of Italy seem pretty proud of Ducati and rightfully so...the company is only about 2,000 people but has accomplished some amazing things on the world stage.  Anyways, the bus took about 45 minutes and next thing I knew, I was getting dropped off here:

Down the road about 5 minutes, I came to the factory.  It was hard to miss:

And after a brief check-in at the guard shack, I met my tour guide Donatella and we got underway.  The first part of the tour took us through the factory, which was awesome.

All Ducatis are hand-assembled here in B.P., so there were tons of raw parts sitting around in crates and bins.  Donatella explained that basically all the engine components are outsourced for manufacture, except for 2 things - crankshafts and camshafts.  Of course due to the desmo system, the cams are important, but I don't really understand why they need to be manufactured in house...it's not like any shop or owner can't get into their engine and inspect the cams.  Maybe it's for quality control.  Speaking of quality control, the factory seemed very efficient and meticulous.  Donatella said that they had adopted the Japanese principle of Kaizen, which they modeled on Toyota, and it showed.  Unfortunately photos weren't allowed in the factory, but it looked exactly like this:

Several different assembly lines, each dedicated to one type of bike.  Even though I worked at Honda, I've never been inside a bike factory before so it was very interesting to me.  We got to see all phases of assembly, through the point that they take each bike and operationally test it in a special room.  That's right, every single one is fired up and ridden on rollers for about 5 minutes before it leaves the factory.

The next section of the tour took us through the museum, which we could take pics in.  It was very well done, a nice layout and a prime selection of historically important bikes.  You could get right up to them, and I was really jealous of the 6 year old kid in my tour group who was able to ignore the "don't touch" warning without getting yelled at.

The 1st Ducatis....they didn't start out with bikes!

The real 1st Ducati...post-war, Italy was devastated and relatively poor.  Bicycles were popular, and Ducati made an engine to fit on a bicycle frame - the Cucciolo (Puppy).  They sold a TON and made the company a big success.

Bikes of Mike Hailwood and Paul Smart....before my time, but I've read enough about 'em to know they're a big deal...

And here we get into the 851 and 916...now this is more like it.

They also had a Supermono on hand....Pierre Terblanche's first bike for them, and a stunner. 

I'll take one of each, please.

Timeless design.

The final room was reserved for the holy grail, the MotoGP bikes.  I could have stared at them for hours.  There was a very interesting contrast between Capirossi's bikes, which were true red, and Stoner's which were sort of orangey.  Donatella explained that this was due to the advent of HD tv....on HD, the orangey color comes out red.  

After the MotoGP room, the tour concluded.  Before leaving I signed the guestbook, and flipped back through the pages a bit.  Someone out there has a pretty good sense of humor....