Ducati Streetfighter Premiere Report – Part II
After much anticipation, finally, the Ducati Streetfighter arrived in North American dealerships over the weekend. ducatinewstoday attended two events in Atlanta hosted by Atlanta Motor World and Ducati Motorcycles of Atlanta. Read on for Part II of the report or click to read Part I first.
The weather had been pretty unreliable in Atlanta recently with scattered rain but Saturday stayed dry for the most part allowing the Ducati Streetfighter North American Premiere event to continue unabated. I made my way to the newest Ducati dealer in Atlanta, Ducati Motorcycles of Atlanta. On display was a red, base model Streetfighter which lacks the Ohlins suspension, forged wheels and Ducati Traction control of the S model along with some smatterings of carbon fiber. The bike looks good in red too but lacks the visual cohesiveness of the black model perhaps because of the red belly pan unnecessarily calling attention to the eye. The frame looks good though and I’d like to see a base model with a black belly pan.
There are a few places where the details on the base model don’t work as well as on the S. The first is the stylized cam belt covers that look trick in carbon fiber but border on tacky in plastic. The same goes for the plastic covers on the exhaust collector which combines with the already large mufflers to make them look even bigger. The answer is Yes if the question is “Does my butt look big in these?” At least, these items could be easily fixed and let’s face it the lower price of the base model is pretty compelling.
The threat of rain seemed to keep some prospective owners away so it was a member of the local Ducati club, Wild Ducs, who was the first to ride the bike and judging by how long he took he must have liked it! You can see from the video clip below how petite the bike actually is, much smaller in person than it looks in photos.
It doesn’t sound too bad with the stock exhaust as you can hear here but is not a patch on the sound from the optional Ducati Performance termignoni system that I expect many will spring for. Termi systems are not cheap with the full system listing for just over US$3,000 so negotiate the price of the exhaust when you buy the bike is ducatinewstoday’s advice!
It remains to be seen how well the model will sell once the initial batch of pre-sold bikes are delivered. The Monster S4Rs was the previous flagship model and probably never really sold that well allowing US dealers to create a limited edition with the final tricolore model by just putting a badge on the bikes they would have sold anyway.
Ducati must be very interested in where Streetfighter riders will come from since simple cannibalization of the Superbike range will not net the company any new sales. Perhaps Ducati senses what I’ve argued for some time, which is that Superbikes have become so focussed for the track that they now make really poor choices for the road.
The Ducati Streetfighter appears to be the most accomplished naked bike released yet in terms of specification and performance. Only time will tell if US riders in particular will be able to let go of the comfort blanket that is the full race fairing.
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