+ Click to Enlarge PURE SEX ON WHEELS: Ducati MH900e combines styling cues from the 1970s with up-to-date running gear. Pictures: DAVE ABRAHAMS

May 5, 2002
By Dave Abrahams

It’s not often that a single designer, no matter how talented, is given an entirely free hand to build a showpiece motorcycle, a signature prototype that will for ever identify him in the minds of enthusiasts everywhere.

Even more rarely does such an individual vision go into production essentially unaltered but this one was always intended to be ridden, penned by a man who is as much a rider as he is a visionary.

Pierre Terblanche, as a teenager in South Africa, lusted after a Ducati Mike Hailwood Replica but, financial reality being what it was, had to settle for a non-desmo 750GT. For years he dreamed of building himself the ultimate Sunday morning sports bike, something like a combination of the immortal 750SS and Mike the Bike’s red and green TT winner, but with the latest brakes and running gear.

Twenty years later Terblanche is the head of the Ducati Design Centre, with the Cagiva Grand Canyon, the fuel-injected 900SS and the acclaimed Supermono racer to his credit. And here it is: his very personal custom sportster. He has admitted that the idea was to display it at all the shows and then, when the novelty had worn off, take it home and ride it at every opportunity.

Nobody expected the reaction the bike unleashed.

Love it or hate it, nobody could ignore the slinky all-red prototype. So many Ducatisti e-mailed the factory after the bike was unveiled at the 1999 Intermot show that the company decided to create a limited edition, hand-built, individually numbered production run of just 2 000 examples.

Apart from a street-legal tail-light, 996 mirrors and brakes, the bike you see here (no. 1757) is essentially a carbon copy of Terblanche’s show-stopper.

The MH900e went on sale at one minute past midnight on the morning of January 1, 2000, before a single production bike had been built. It was available only through a dedicated website and by lunchtime that day they were all sold. It was to be more than six months before the first customer got his bike.

The MH900e is neither a replica nor a retro. It’s a tribute. It’s what Terblanche thinks the Mike Hailwood Replica might have evolved into had it remained in production. That’s what the “e” stands for: evoluzione. It has the single central dial and high pipes of the genuine race bikes, as well as the round inset headlight of a thousand café racers.

Despite its thoroughly modern 1415mm wheelbase it looks long and rangy, like an old bevel-drive twin, but it also has upside-down forks and the sexiest one-sided swing-arm in the business.

It’s driven by the same 904cc air-cooled L-twin that serves the 900SS, a motor that traces its ancestry to the 1978 500 Pantah, fitted with a cast-alloy dummy sump to make it look like a bevel-drive motor. In this version the fuel injection has been re-mapped for improved low-speed running to try to address the transmission snatch that affects the SS.

Maximum power is down two kiloWatts to 55.7 at 7500rpm but the torque peak of 77Nm remains at 6250rpm.

However, this the most civilised air-cooled motor yet from Ducati. It pulls evenly from just over 2000rpm and really strongly anywhere above 4800. It picks up power cleanly and progressively out of a corner, making it a joy on mountain passes. The multiplate dry clutch seems to be able to withstand a lot more abuse than even the makers appear to credit and picks up smoothly, without shuddering, hot or cold.

The gearbox has been built to race specifications, hand-lapped to a perfect fit. Upshifts with or without the clutch are smooth and even; downshifts are a little vocal but commendably positive, with a short, light lever throw. Even neutral is easy to find, which is unusual on any Ducati. Partly due to the short swing-arm, the chain run is short and there’s no discernable driveline lash.

The frame is a close copy of the original Verlicchi racing frame for the Pantah but the swing-arm – oh my word! Fully braced and triangulated, it’s fabricated entirely from steel tubing, bent and formed into superbly clean, breathtakingly complex curves. It’s pivoted on the back of the gearbox, as has been the case with every Ducati since 1978, and it’s a genuine work of art.

The 43mm Marzocchi inverted forks are quite ordinary but the offset, remote-reservoir Paioli rear shock offers adjustment for everything except the colour of your girlfriend’s knickers – which is fine because the 900e is firmly a monoposto, with no provision for pillion accommodation.

The five-spoked wheels are by Marchesini and are unique to this bike; the front rim is relatively conventional but the rear wheel is dished, with the 220mm rear disc brake inside it. The front brake on the prototype is a single silesium rotor, which isn’t street-legal yet, so the production bike wears twin 320mm stainless rotors with four-pot Brembo calipers.

That may be overkill on a 186kg twin but their response is almost clinically accurate, two-finger braking at its most precise. Just be careful around town, where the sharpness of the initial bite might catch you unawares; did we mention the braided stainless-steel brake lines – what else would you expect on this bike?

Also very retro is the suicide stand, which clangs loudly up against the motor if you lift the bike more than about two millimeters from rest. It will do the same with the smallest nudge forward, so be very careful where you park your MH900e.

The body panels consist of just two plastic mouldings. The fairing and tank cover are in one piece, sharply reminiscent of the bike Hailwood rode to victory in the 1978 TT with its blocky silver graphics. Most evocative of all for us fortysomething riders, the maker’s name is emblazoned in the superlative double-line font created for Ducati in 1977 by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the Italdesign genius responsible for the VW Golf Mk1 and the Ferrari 250LM.

Under the swoopy red plastic is a black plastic fuel tank that has to compete for limited space with the air box and fuel injection system; as a result it holds only 12.5 litres, about enough for morning’s hard riding. This is not a tourer.

The fairing is (of course) painstakingly finished and fully lined. The screen, instead of just being bolted into place, is mounted on five individual waisted chrome pillars, just for the pretty of it. It also reduces the tendency of all polycarbonate screens to crack at the screw holes, which is why Terblanche did it.

The standard 996 mirrors are mounted in the 1970s manner at the rear edge of the fairing and, in the 1970s manner, give the rider a very good view of his elbows.

A close replica of a Veglia racing tacho is mounted in a chrome bezel in the middle of the cockpit, above a digital speedo. In correct racing fashion it’s been carefully laid out so that the motor reaches its power peak when the needle points straight up at 12 o’clock, a very accurate visual remainder that it’s time to change gears without flashing lights and LED telltales.

The single round headlight, with a clear polycarbonate cover, is mounted in a heavy chromed rim, one of the bike’s few design faults. Everybody who has seen it in the flesh has commented that it would have looked better had the light been a little bigger, with a narrow Bosch rim.

The tailpipes on Paul Smart’s 1972 Imola race-winner were routed up along the sides of the frame like a contemporary scrambler in an effort to improve ground clearance. In a nod to the first V-twin from Bologna (and to the later 916) the 900e’s exhausts stick out from under the abbreviated single saddle like a pair of chomed ray-guns, braced by a little aluminium bracket that holds the rear indicators and number plate.

The total lack of exhaust plumbing below the motor makes the half-faired MH look stripped down, very spare and racerish – pure essence of motorcycle, if you will.

The seat height is a tall 825mm, which makes the bike a little intimidating in traffic and parking lot situations. Bear in mind, however, that Terblanche is two metres tall and that the bike was designed specifically for him. It might be a problem, though, for the owners of the more than 760 copies going to Japanese buyers.

That’s right, Cyril, 38% of all the MH900es are going to the home of the mass-produced four.

Get the bike out on the twisty mountain roads it was designed for and it becomes obvious that the evoluzione is no show special - it was built to be ridden. The seating position is long and rangy, with an old-fashioned stretch to the low-mounted clip-ons but, like a Pantah, you don’t steer this thing – it goes where you look, with absolute accuracy and remarkable stability considering its short-coupled 1415mm wheelbase.

The Marzocchis are an object lesson in just how good non-adjustable forks can be. They hold a line like in a groove in the road, feed back every crack and ripple to the bars and soak up the big bumps without affecting the steering.

The turn-in is a little slow by grand prix standards but the bike will change its attitude in the middle of a corner without upsetting the chassis, unlike an old bevel-drive twin. My 1980 900GTS was as stable as a locomotive but, once committed to a corner, a change of line required a week’s notice and an Act of Parliament.

The rear shock is just as good, surprisingly supple without squatting on hard exits, another tribute to Terblanche’s superb chassis geometry. I was unable to induce any pattering or chatter under braking, despite the bumpiness of some of my favourite tarmac playgrounds.

The MH900e is set up for a solo rider; it’s exquisitely balanced, seemingly poised like a ballet dancer, with unlimited ground clearance. I’m not sure what would be the first thing to touch down, but it would probably be either the rims or the rider’s elbow. Certainly a better rider than yours truly could ride it right off the treads of the tyres without scraping anything.

Despite the “1970s” elements in the chassis layout (or maybe because of them!), the 900e handles significantly better than the already very competent 900SS from which it gets its motor. It’s an integrated package in the way that a bike designed by a committee could never be – with all the attendant quirks – because that’s exactly what it is: one man’s vision of the perfect Sunday morning companion.

Anybody wanna buy a low-mileage second-hand soul?

Price: R180 000 (and there were still two available in South Africa at the time of writing).

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Test bike from: Ducati Cape Town.