Bolt upright shocks

This F2 Ducati race rep's on eBay at the moment, the seller claiming the frame was changed to mimic Tony Rutter's 1981 TT winner. You might look at those vertical shocks and think he must be joking - and you'd be wrong.


Pat Slinn spannered all of Rutter's Ducatis, and I was chatting to him for a piece in issue two of Benzina. Tony's original 1981 F2 TT racer wasn't a TT2 - Pat built the engine, and a crashed Pantah frame was beefed up by Ron William's of Maxton fame. When Tony saw the bike he couldn't believe the vertical shocks would work - but then Maxton built the chassis that finally brought Honda's ill-stared NR500 (limited) success.

So maybe this is a very special bike - although the NCR claim's a bit rich; NCR had no involvement with the 1981 TT winner. NCR were effectively Ducati Corse in those days, and based in the Borgo Panigale factory. They alone built the genuine TT2s, perhaps the most faked/replicated/misunderstood Ducati ever made.