This black and white pic was shamelessly scanned from Classic Bike #1, published back in the early eighties when a certain Mrs T upset enough people to effectively invent nostalgia. Bill Haylock (for me the finest and fastest journalist of all time - Bill, wither are thou now?)already had a 450 Desmo and wrote eloquently about the first Ducati Desmo you could actually buy, the 350 MkIIID; sure, it didn't need the desmo valve gear (big ends are far more likely to limit revs in a big single) but Taglioni was desperate to get desmo valve gear into production, and what Dr T wanted he generally got.
There's a fabulous photoshoot of a redden and restored "Twin filler" (as these bikes are colloquially know) in
Benzina issue 6 (out next week) plus an insight into a previously unseen replacement from 1975: no, not the Utah/Rolah (tho they feature too) but an earlier prototype. It seems Dr T really did do just as he pleased at Ducati, even if much of it never finished up in the showrooms. And more of Gilles Desmeurs 350D (below) by clicking
here
