Ducati Scrambler launches 18 July - and is Federico Minoli on his way back to Ducati?

 

Is Federico Minoli on his way back to Ducati? Because the new Scrambler has his fingerprints all over it. He always understood Ducati needed an affordable, youthful entry level model starting with –as he put it – the gift of the Monster when he took charge of Ducati, and pushing through Pierre Terblanche’s Hypermotard against the wishes of others. Minoli realised that Ducati couldn’t just be driven by racing and fine engineering; there had to be something for other fans of the brand. And the Scrambler ticks all those boxes

 Ducati also say the Scrambler will be launched at World Ducati Week (18-20 July - that's a week?) with a beach party on the Friday evening.  It will also be promoted using Ducati factory staff – another Minoli legacy, from his insistence that everyone in the factory learnt to ride and were passionate about Ducati rather than seeing their employment as just a job. Yes, this could just be a flywheel effect, although to see it still spinning seven years after Minoli was squeezed out seems unlikely. But there’s one final aspect to the Scrambler launch that is pure Minoli – the surf board and beach thing. Federico was an early admirer of Deus ex Machina – who mix surf and custom bike culture so successfully – and it was Minoli who was behind Deus’s flagship Milan store.

 

With the Scrambler Ducati are on course to challenge Harley-Davidson as the default non-biker’s bike of choice. I never dreamt that years ago, as folk ridiculed us Ducatisti for putting up with dreadful paint and laughable electrics – never mind failing big ends – that it would come to this. While  every other manufacturer seems lost in a wilderness of plagiarism and declining sales, Ducati have never looked stronger. And along with all the very special people who made Ducati’s history, Minoli made Ducati profitable and secured its future. The man’s a bona fide legend and it would be great to see him back on the board.

Everyone who’s seen the Scrambler loves it. Some are even saying it could cost as little as 7500 Euro, so maybe under £7k in the UK. I’ll have an orange one please.