I will hopefully have an interesting snippet soon relating to the bike, just waiting for some ones permission to post their e-mail :Shy:
Wait a while will ya, I'll have a response soon - it's from Australia though :Wideyed: so may be tomorrow now
Its a great thread and Exige. I always wonder about r&d on bikes, when they had the ideas etc. Looking forward to seeing the email
I found Ian Falloon's ebay account (of Ducati Historical Book Fame) and contacted him regarding my 999 prototype to get his thoughts - I sent my original power point research with all my evidence and explained Ducati had confirmed on the phone but then wouldn't put it in writing. Ian said: "You have done some great research and a wonderful presentation here. I can tell you what I know. In September 2000 I saw the prototype 999, Terblanche showed it to me and we discussed it in detail. At that stage it was ready to go into production as far as Terblanche was concerned. So there was a significant time lapse between this and eventual production which obviously saw a number of changes implemented. But I wasn't able to photograph it and have no way of comparing the details with the eventual production version as you have. If you want more clarification for your research you need to contact Pierre." He goes on to say "I think your summary is spot on, thanks for sharing it. Great stuff". Ian is a personal friend of Pierre Terblanche and has been kind enough to give me Pierre's contact details. I can't thank Ian enough for this! :Happy:
I think the prototype he refers to is the 'Mule' prior to mine which was based on a 998 frame - it is shown the the book '999 Birth of a Legend' Ian has written around 30 books on Motorcycles, predominantly Ducati and is the world renowned expert on classic Ducati's.
