Snap.!..................looks more like PVC material that a old girlfriend used on a friday night out.
That cover is pretty much the nicest one I have seen - I really don’t think that it’s a genuine Ducati cover matching that part number - it’s so well made - just doesn’t match the era. OEM Tyres were: Michelin Pilot Sports - see this article for source of this info. https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/2001/march/world-first-test-on-the-ducati-996r/ And this picture of a completely original US import 996R Tyre confirms it. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2001-ducati-996r/ On the subject of the Plaque. There’s a whole bunch of conflicting information on the Internet about the 996R. Google it and you will find a bunch of stuff all stating that only 500 were produced and 350 of them were sold directly from Ducati via the web - these were numbered on the headstock and came with a matching commemorative Plaque. A further 150 were unnumbered race bikes that were meant to be bought by race teams etc. This info despite being everywhere - is inaccurate! I saw a few things that conflicted with the figures so went digging and here’s what I found. If there’s supposed to be only 350 numbered examples - then where did this come from? I saw a couple of bikes with numbers over 350 - that made me look further. This post has a discussion about the numbers - but a quite reasonable query is shot down by someone who was so sure of his facts that he stopped the truth from being explored. https://www.ducati.ms/threads/how-many-extra-996r-were-made.733040/ The following shots are from one of Falloon’s books - details in post linked above. These pages show the 996Rs allocated to each market - split between internet sales and bikes allocated to dealers. Despite what is said by the naysayer in the Ducati.ms post - THESE ARE THE MOST ACCURATE FIGURES! So how am I so sure?? Well eventually I found this video - and it contains information gained directly from Ducati - attained by a 996R owner who obviously shares my enquiring mind! Ducati have stated that a total of 700 996Rs were produced in the 2001 production run. 375 were allocated to internet sales and a further 325 to dealers. If you listen to the part where he talks about production figures Ducati said his bike was one of the 30 GB bikes that were allocated to the normal distribution network rather than the 56 GB internet bikes - see above pictures -the data correlates. There are exactly 325 dealer bikes in the above lists but only 373 internet bikes - 2 missing - I would say Ducati kept a couple. There are also 6 extra bikes produced in 1999 - I would guess these were preproduction demo bikes that would have gone to bike shows and launches - like the XXXX bikes we have seen on other limited production bikes. The existence of bike number 381 indicates that it wasn’t just the internet bikes that were numbered. But there’s no solid data confirming how many of the bikes were unnumbered models - I’m not inclined to take the 150 figure as gospel given as it’s quoted alongside the 500 and 350 figures that are now proven to be inaccurate. There is talk of the race versions having different cylinder heads and possibly blueprinted engines - however it seems unlikely that Ducati would have blueprinted all of the unnumbered bikes. There may have been a smaller number that were destined for factory supported race teams, but it doesn’t seem likely for example that all unnumbered USA bikes had blueprinted engines. There are however 2 different versions of the parts list for the 996R - and I checked the Cylinder head part numbers on each version - one discontinued and 1 that is the same part number used on the 998 and 999 engines - so there might be something in the claim that the race versions had different heads….. (edit - after further reading and thought I don’t think the part number difference is significant - Ducati regularly phase out superseded part numbers and in this case the replacement part number is from the 998 - it doesn’t mean the bikes got a different part from the factory.) (further to this - proper race teams would have used the 996RS - so that makes it even more unlikely that the unnumbered version of the 996R would have been mechanically different. What I have found in multiple places is that the 60 USA bikes didn’t have numbers and were sold as race bikes. I have also read that not all of those bikes ended up in the US and of course there are now bikes all over the world that have been shipped from their original markets. (Edit - see below reply - this info is inaccurate - there are USA bikes with numbered headstocks so references to all 60 being the race version are wrong.) Finally I get to the point @92GTA ! If your bike is an original US import then it won’t have a numbered headstock or matching plaque and it would have been shipped without lights, indicators or mirrors. However as the wiring was all there many of the ‘race only’ bikes were converted to road spec by the distributing dealers at the request of the customer. Even though they weren’t actually approved for road use. Mirrors on the road versions were black. There are quite a few 996Rs with red painted mirrors like the 998 came with - some will have had them fitted as an option part by the dealer, many might have been race versions and the Red mirrors fitted as part of the road conversion - either by owner choice or because quite a few of the race versions hung around in dealers for a while so the new standard parts for the 998 would have been readily available. Ducati didn’t ship red mirrored 996Rs from the factory. So @92GTA which one have you got?? We want pictures now after all this!
Wow, you typed a lot lol. I already know and agree with nearly all you said. The bit about the heads is news to me although I knew abut the different parts lists, I didn't know the head P/Ns differed. First, my bike is a UK market bike, which I mentioned in my post (hence why I asked about UK market bikes and plaques) so you could have saved some time haha. Second, I have numbered bikes up to 0492 in my records so of course, some of what people post on the internet is nonsense. I've always been in the 698 or 700 camp. Mr Mam also correctly points out that many of the un-numbered bikes have engine numbers above 500. - I also have 2 US bikes that are numbered, so not all were un-numbered. The US market stickers on the frame WITH the MPH only clock makes the US market bikes easy to spot. PS - the pre-production bikes did not have the exposed carbon NACA duct on each side fairing, they are red. Thanks for the confirmation on the tire, but you never answered my question about the UK bikes plaques ..... I've bought DucatiRegistry.net and also Ducati748R.net, Ducati996R.net, and Ducati998R.net for them to forward to their respective portions of the sites. I'll be posting my 996R database that I have personally amassed and I'll have scripts allowing other owners to upload pics with info. There will be a ton of other info on the site as well. - The site should be live by Q2 2023, right now there is just a temp page.
I missed that little detail about you saying it was a UK bike! I was more interested in getting to the truth because there’s so much misinformation out there that just gets repeated as gospel! Interesting that some of the official US bikes were numbered - does that mean they shipped as road bikes or did they have the ‘i’m not legal’ stickers? If I have said anything else you don’t think is factual please let me know - I’m far more interested in it being correct than I am in being right. Further on the subject of the period correct cover. This is the original cover that came with the 2000 996 SPS. The more modern covers are made of stretchy polyester but these older covers that people have been saying disintegrate are made of TNT or in english - non-woven fabric. Which is made of a degradable polypropylene - the same kind of material that surgical gowns are made of but thicker. They aren’t designed to last for a long time - they are specifically supposed to be biodegradable. So unless they are kept in a sealed bag away from oxygen and sunlight then a 21 year old cover is going to be in bad shape.
That I am not sure of at this point and have no solid evidence to back up either way config for these. I know the bike numbers and we could always launch a wild goose chase to find the owners and possibly get the contact info on the original owners to ask. - All that said, the pictures of them I have show one of them with red mirrors so we know it shipped in the standard non-streetable config. The other has foldable aftermarket carbon mirrors, further supporting this *assertion* at the moment. It's been established both here and by pics of a 996R still in a crate that the degradable polypropylene type cover was correct with DUCATI 996 printed on it in white lettering. I know exactly what these are as I had one for a Ducati of mine back in the 2000s and when I bought another cover in the early 2010s it was already the newer and much better stretchy type. - I'm sure I will find one that's been tucked away safe from someone charging an extortionant amount lol.
I replied before you had finished adding info in the edit! On the commemorative plaques front - there are only 2 possible options - either all of the bikes with a numbered headstock shipped with a matching Plaque or just the internet ones. I can’t find any info that specifically states one way or the other - the Plaques were not just a uk only thing though.
Yeah, I've made a few edits to my last couple of replies haha. Just how I roll I guess. Interesting theory on the internet sale bikes vs. all numbered bikes. I've also found in my research that I think not all destination markets received the plaques either way for some reason. Thanks!
Just one final little bit of info to throw in following on from the earlier picture of the 996 SPS/F cover. That’s the 1999 Factory Replica - limited edition of 150 and the below is what came with it - the cover is clearly a higher quality than the TNT one that came with the standard 2000 SPS the following year. The Certificate of Authenticity Plaque for this edition is in the black box. So it would seem that the 996R didn’t ship with the same quality of cover as the SPS/F.
Just out of curiosity, anyone knows what’s in the little 996SPS/F grey metal box? Anyways, great digging and info @LiveFast…. and @92GTA. This makes for a very interesting thread!
Just want to have a quick discussion on this topic. I agree that VERY few of the non-numbered were ever *really* intended for "race teams" as the internet seems to regurgitate. Professional motorsports teams and factory supported teams would have run the 996RS. These were instead simply intended for the vast number of "weekend warriors" who wanted a track bike (or private non-sponsored pro-race entrants) and to satisfy the "off road use only" requirements to get them into certain countries. I also agree it's unlikely that Ducati would have only randomly blue printed some of these bikes. Being that the entire 996R Testastretta run was with low production sand-cast engine cases and not mass production die-cast like the 998 bikes were, it's likely all of the rotating assemblies could have been blue printed. Why just do some of them, especially not knowing their destination/use individually enough to know which to BP. - On to the heads, I would bet money that the only real difference would have been some mild porting/valve lapping. I HIGHLY doubt they were a different casting, different valves, or used RS heads. They all came with the same Titanium valves. Further investigation is certainly called for on this front given your finding of the 2 different cylinder head P/Ns though.
This is an un numbered 996r soon to be for sale only 6k miles on the clock, I had in for an mot last month.
So I checked and found a single label on my 916 cover. Looked them up on the web but found nothing. Looks like they don’t exist anymore. Maybe limited runs on special orders? All I know is Castelfranco Emilia is 15 miles away from Borgo Panigale…
@cookster Congratulations on the first ever car levitating above a juicy Ducati, based on this thread information that R will sell very quickly in my opinion.................and the price.????????????? @LiveFast...... great work there and very fascinating information for any 996r owners like me.
Wow, some of you would do a better job than most cops Can’t say I’d buy any R or SPS that didn’t have a genuine plaque on the top yoke. Rightly or wrongly, seen too many bitsa bikes over the years pretending to be original genuine bikes
Mine's outside the plaque thingy, who cares if you have confirmation from the factory, but surely any Ducati owner buying one will know their onions on these matters before handing over the funds.
