Massimo Bordi Returns

“We began work on the four-valve project in April as a 748cc engine and we were racing at the Bol d’Or in September, but the power was not so strong, less than 100 horsepower. I decided that as the European superbike championship rules allowed a V-twin to be 1000cc, I should start growing the four-valve engine from 748 to 851cc using the same stroke with a bigger bore. As the combustion chamber was much better on the 851 we increased the power to 115 horsepower and started doing very well in superbike racing. When the WSBK championship started in 1988 we were very competitive and although Honda won the title, our rider Marco Lucchinelli won two races and finished fifth in the championship. It showed everybody that we could be successful. Then, as the rules allowed us to grow further in capacity, it became 888, 916, 950 and 996 and we won ten championships with Raymond Roche, Doug Polen, Troy Bayliss, Troy Corser and of course Carl Fogarty.”

As well as being heavily involved in the racing side, Bordi was also developing Ducati’s road-bike range using the established two-valve motor. It was his concept, inspired by an old movie poster, that lead to the development of the bike that Ducati’s very foundations were built on.

“I was talking to Miguel Galluzzi and asked him to design something like the bike in the famous picture of Marlon Brando in The Wild One. It was an iconic image of a bike with a large single headlight and I asked Galluzzi to make a bike in this style — aggressive and sporty but also naked. That’s where the Monster came from.”

It is impossible to understate just how important the Monster was to Ducati in the 1990s. Without its success, there was a very real possibility that Ducati itself would have folded. Over 50 percent of the company’s sales through the 1990s were Monsters, and it allowed Ducati to grow from producing around 1000 to nearly 25,000 by 1995 and more than 40,000 in 2001. There was one other bike though, that also helped raise the company’s profile and catapulted its designer into the world’s spotlight.

“Tamburini is more than just a designer, he also understands frames,” says Bordi. “The trellis design of the 851 was my idea and it used the engine more as a structural component than on the Pantah, but Tamburini introduced full-floating suspension and altered the frame’s design. He is more than just a stylist, he is a very competent engineer and understands geometry.”

Having masterminded Ducati’s resurgence and with his passion for the brand, it could be expected the marriage between the Bologna manufacturer and Bordi would last forever. The 22-year relationship abruptly ended in 2001 however, when Castiglioni was forced to sell Ducati to the investment firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG).

“I wasn’t totally in line with TPG and (then-Ducati CEO) Federico Minoli’s strategy for the future,” Bordi says diplomatically. “After several opportunities, I was made CEO of Same Deutz-Fahr, one of the five biggest tractor and agriculture producing companies in the world with €1 billion revenue — much bigger than Ducati.”

However there is another twist to the Ducati story around this period. While he had left the company, Bordi actually tried to orchestrate a separate takeover of Ducati, something that has remained a closely guarded secret until now.