WORDS : ROLAND BROWN IMAGES: ROLAND BROWN/FB ARCHIVE
Sleeker, more stylish and so much more appealing. And that’s just the Panigale’s rider we’re talking about.
Ducati’s liquid-cooled, eight-valve V-twins have been so successful for so long that the end hardly seems possible, but the name printed on the red, white and green fairing confirms it: the 1299 Panigale R Final Edition will be the Bologna factory’s last desmo V-twin flagship. In November at EICMA in Milan, Ducati will unveil a new-generation super-sports V4. And unlike the limited-production Desmosedici RR of a decade ago, this V4 will take over as the firm’s top mass-produced sports bike, ending an era of liquid-cooled, eight-valve desmo V-twin dominance that began way back in 1988 with the original 851.