Hello! Long time lurker, first time poster. I’m going to view/ride a ‘97 Ducati 600ss this weekend and just wanted to canvas some opinions. My current stable of bikes consists of a ‘53 D1 Bantam for running around London and a now sadly written off ‘86 FZR400, taken out in a hit and run on New Year’s Day. I never really bonded with the FZR as I felt it lacked “character” in comparison to my other bike 30odd years its senior. A Ducati has always appealed. Anyway, a 600ss has come up for sale in Essex, it’s a 97 with 25k on the clock. Listed at £1800 Here’s the rub: the bike is a Cat N, the seller (who is a professional motorcycle mechanic) was expecting the previous owner with the bike for a service when he telephoned to say he’d dropped it, smashed a fairing and that was that. The bike was written off, the mechanic bought it and is now freeing up space in his collection. There are receipts totalling £1300 for the last major service, including valve maintenance. Visually the bike is very clean apart from an Ill-advised tricolour paint job, and will be sold with a year’s MOT. I’m not allergic to spanners and do the majority of servicing jobs myself, but would like to spend the majority of my time riding, and not mending as I did with the FZR. Two carbs and air cooling sounds like the ticket to me! My questions therefore are: - Is the 600ss an unfairly maligned bike, or is it a Turkey? - Is a Cat N Ducati waiting to break my heart/wallet? - is it more sensible to wait, and save for a less historically complex machine, or perhaps even a 750? - is it an economical bike to maintain and run? Any input welcome, thank you very much in advance!
Firstly welcome. Secondly wtf is that seat?!! Thirdly imho it’s stil at best a £1300 bike, I wouldn’t pay a grand personally. If you don’t know anything about them, they are bulletproof motors, carbs that hate the cold more than an Kenyan, fun but need hard work to ride quick with a top speed of about 100mph (barely more) momentum is your friend!
My concern would be that you might be a little disappointed with the performance A dropped bike with a smashed/damaged fairing isn’t an issue however a cat n might carry some stigma and be a cause for concern to a potential buyer when selling on in the future. Personally I’d look out for a tidy 900. At least you have the correct colour nailed. Welcome BTW
I was straight in there with the poll for yes Are they all the pictures you have Have you got the other side Why didn't the previous owner just buy another fairing rather than saddle it with a Cat N Is there more to this Im not sure about this The SS was my first bike It was far more capable than I was, its fast enough and I think they are fun to ride I have ridden a multi an SSIE a monster and had a quick go on 996 SS was more exciting to ride with more rider involvement There is a 900 SS in yellow for sale or was in the for sale section
Thanks for the welcome! Full disclosure I’ve only held my full license for a year and much of that year was spent working abroad so not nearly as much time riding as I’d like. The only other persuasive arguments I can think of is the majority of my riding is through london, with weekend stints out to that most glorious of counties, Essex. The other issue of course, is I’m skint, and whilst I’d love a well sorted 900, I think it’ll be too rich for my blood. I don’t want to come over as a cheeky bastard by asking the seller to drop his price to £1500 either, but I suppose if you don’t ask… I can’t imagine he paid a fortune for it as salvage…
The 600 will be perfect starter It was my first bike never having ridden before I bought it before I had even passed my test I knew I wanted mine as soon as I sat on her, my friend took her for a test drive and said buy Oh and they are easy to work on
Hi Should you be willing to pay £1800 then you might be better of paying a bit more for one like this. DUCATI 750 SS J REG LOW MILES OWNERS HAND BOOK OLD MOTS 1 YEARS MOT DUCATI 750SS 1992Opens in a new window or tab
Whichever one you go for remember to lift the tank and check for any corrosion on the left hand side near to the seat Can be a bit of a bugger to have fixed and should definitely be a price negotiation point.
At this age, imho cat n or whatever makes no difference: it’s a cheap old bike. Some on here live champagne at beer money…if it’s clean and goes well and you think it’s worth it why not but I’d try and knock on price, 2k gets a good one. Looks fairly clean though in those pictures.
This is sort of my argument, if I can't get there quickly or expensively, I might as well look good going slowly and on budget... Test ride is organised for Saturday, I'm sure I'll be back here, one way or another! Thank you very much for all of your responses so far everybody!
A 600ss was my first bike about 25 years ago. I bought it back a couple of years back. I've enjoyed riding it again, in fact so much so that I bought a 900 superlight to go with it. I paid £1800 for mine, I don't know why they don't fetch more money as they are a fun, involving ride.
