Tartarini turn-ups

This is the official Ducati photo of the 1970s revamped parallel twin - Taglioni hated the original, and probably only deigned to update the engine so he could add his beloved desmo valve gear in place of the original's springers. The new styling job came courtesy of Leo Tartarini, and would find its way onto Darmah. Originally the plan was to paint the exhausts white, an allusion to the asbestos tape often seen on race bikes and highly fashionable on custom bikes today: unsurprisingly they never made it into production.


But as revealed in Benzina #006, Tartarini was originally charged with styling a new 350 single that never made it to the showrooms: when the single got the axe, the styling lived on for the 500 and Darmah. And despite what the naysayer's reckon the 500 Desmo Sport was a great bike - it just cost 860GTS money, and no 500's that good. Today the cognoscenti love them, including Benzina friend and custom car builder Gunter Oxler of Oxygen Customs - the bottom pic is a teaser from his website. So if you can, try a 500 Desmo Sport - you might like it, and at a third of Darmah money, who could blame you?