Me and the missus going the first Saturday. She has a GSXR at the mo, and got a free ticket. But £10 for parking. Rip off !!!!!! Even so, we love the show and go every year.
Was sent an electronic copy of the show guide and it is not entirely clear if the full range will be there. Don't see why not and both the XDiavel and Multistrada Urban are heavily advertised in the guide. Happy to report back on Sunday if that will help. Andy
Monster Owners Club forumites meeting up on Sat 28th at 12noon on the Ducati stand. I'll be there wearing a Harley rucksack...
Going tomorrow. See you and your Harley rucksack on the Ducati stand at 12, EvoAde, but having gone down with a lurgee and totally lost my voice, I might just about manage to croak hello, but I won't be up to discussing the finer points of the new bikes!
From what I saw the only two bikes missing were a Pikes Peak and the Flat Track Scrambler but there were so many people I might well have misse them. Did like the two Enduro models, don't want one but looked really good. Andy
I went to the NEC on Sunday, being given a ride up in a 6.0 litre V12 Jaguar. A real fun car. Liked the Multi Enduro a lot, many desirable features. In a couple of years, when they get to the Mark II or Mark III version, it will be really great. They should have started an adventure version three years ago. XDiavel is a brave attempt to break into the US cruiser market. Not sure 1300 is big enough, in a market of 1800s. Not sure bits of black plastic are good enough, when acres of bright chromium plating are required. Could try harder. The 400 Scrambler is handicapped by the idiotic name ("Sixty2") and unattractive paint colours - these are easily correctable. Basic components all over the bike permit an entry-level price. It will sell in Asia for sure. But will it damage Ducati's elevated brand image in Europe? What do you think @gliddofglood ?
I have just watched the Dominicali presentation, handicapped, it must be said, sadly, by the approximate mastery of the English language by all involved apart from Troy Bayliss. It was interesting to see where they are coming from. I can see they have spent a lot of time with ad agencies, mood boards and concepts. Is this making their products and brand better? I can't help feeling that there is too much emphasis on marketing by numbers rather than just doing what they always used to do, it seems to me, which was doing what felt right to them. This presentation looks like an awful lot of presentations I have been involved in over the years. Still, the Scrambler concept seems quite obvious to me. They are in a market of ageing consumers (like most of the people on here) and they have to do something to try and attract the yoof. The Scrambler is designed to do this - get people into the Ducati brand and motorcycling in general. If they don't do this, then they will wither and die in the next decades. They have been clever in creating, as they point out, a new brand which is more Scrambler than it is Ducati. There is nothing much about the Scrambler which really shouts Ducati. Change the name on the tank and it could be anything. So perhaps the best thing the die-hard Ducatisti can do is just ignore it. I sort of think that their DNA is being diluted everywhere. The XDiavel doesn't look very Ducati either and the MS Adventure will often be mistaken for a BMW at a cursory glance. It's the real problem of entering different market segments. I can see that it makes commercial sense to do this, but every time they do, it dilutes the brand essence somewhat. You can't imagine Ferrari making a 4x4. Will the Multistrada, Diavel, Hypermotard or Scrambler ever be shown in the Guggenheim as the 916 was? It seems unlikely. I think that Ducati are becoming less and less differentiated as a brand. This is the problem with all "luxury" brands. As they become more mainstream and are adopted by the Majority (having been the preserve of Innovators and Early Adopters), profits increase hugely, but they lose what made them what they are. Before if you were female you might have felt special with your Louis Vuitton handbag. Now it's just a cliché. Everyone and their dog has one (even if many are surely counterfeit). Moncler down jackets are very expensive and hard to find, but I have noticed that they have become ubiquitous in the local town. Surely many of these are counterfeit too. You aren't likely to find a counterfeit Ducati, but you will feel less special when you park yours and see that only a few bikes away there are another half dozen parked up. Owning a Ducati, or previously a Laverda or a Guzzi made you feel a bit different. I'm not sure that owning a Ducati makes you feel that different these days. Now you'd have to get a Bimota for the same kudos. I think that the heart of the Ducati DNA was beauty in design. That made some of their products a bit impractical, but that was the trade-off. Now they are very practical, but a whole lot less beautiful. The last time I really lusted over a Ducati was the 851. Even the 916 looked a bit small and skinny in comparison and started the whole hypersports, track-focused thing where it was a lot less practical for actually riding long distances. Not to say it didn't look good or special, just that when it came out, I wasn't immediately smitten. I didn't feel I desperately needed to change mine (which I ended up getting of course) for a 999, and since I have had the 999, I haven't felt a burning desire to change it for anything at all. It could just be me, maybe it is.
, I agree. After many years with many different brands of bike I had always lusted after a Laverda or a Ducati.....just to have something different. I looked at a Laverda 750s Formula, unfortunately it really did seem too agricultural for me, however I still want one even now I took the Ducati route and 12 years later after owning nothing but DUCs (until recently) their popularity has grown. It's great for Ducati but it's left me wanting something different again. Following my accident I decided to look for an alternative and just bought a Triumph. I see far less of my model than DUCs at the local bike meets now. I still have a DUC and I would feel lost not to have one. I'm off to the NEC Saturday, I know I'll be heading straight for the Ducati stand, followed by maybe the MV stand :smilingimp:
Good point. A presenter who speaks fluently, preferably in English, and who doesn't look like a corpse would help. If they had bunged Troy a few Euros, he could have done the whole thing.
