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Something rare passed through eBay recently, a 1989 Ducati 888 Lucchinelli Replica. Although this bike is claimed to be new and one of just 20 made, $75,000 is a lot of money. What is the Ducati 888 Lucchinelli Replica? Read on.

Marco Lucchinelli after debuting the new 4-valve, liquid cooled Ducati 888 in the inaugural year of the World Superbike Championship, became team manager in 1989 with Raymond Roche doing the riding along with Baldassarre Monti (Roche would go on to win the title for Ducati in 1990).

The bike that homologated the Ducati 851 in 1988 was in fact the 851 Kit which looked very much like the road bike save for 17″ Marvic wheels with slicks but was in a higher state of tune with 120bhp. It still had a headlight and mirrors though!

For 1989, Ducati offered 20 Marco Lucchinelli replica over the counter racers. These bikes were intended for domestic series and dealer teams but in the early days were not particularly well developed and thus not competitive. The Lucky replica was really developed on from the 1988 Kit (it still had the reverse cone exhaust) with 128bhp but still too heavy at 158kg (316lb) given that the twins weight limit was 140kg. In latter years a Ducati 888 Corsa as they became known was essentially factory spec from the year before and could win races as Carl Fogarty showed at Donington in 1992, but not in 1989.

Perhaps that is why the eBay example didn’t sell. Yes, it is rare and undoubtedly the only one that is new but $75,000 is a lot of money for a bike that was never that special even in its day. The owner also doesn’t seem to know all that much about it. He claims it is 1988 model (they weren’t produced until 1989) and incorrectly asserts that this bike could have won the 1988 World Superbike title. While it is true that Lucky could have on the factory bike (the team didn’t contest the final 2 rounds of the series), this replica is a far cry from that. Still, if I was a squillionaire I’d buy it for a track day machine!

Source: eBay

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