The $3.5bn unfinished bike (and what Ducati WON’T admit) | Ducati MONSTER | ICONS
# Ducati Monster: A Legend in the Making
## The Birth of an Icon
We, did it. We’re finally talking about it and it only took 350,000 units of it to be sold, to be a worldwide phenomenon, and to single-handedly save Ducati from bankruptcy or at best irrelevancy. In a few minutes, numbers like 696, 796, 821, S4RS, will finally have no secrets for you. They might even make sense to you. Maybe. We’re also going to talk about the sad truth Ducati will never admit to you.
## The Visionary Designer
The year is 1984. Everyone’s high on coke, everything has the word turbo on it, and greed is good. In the midst of it all, is 25-year-old Miguel Galluzzi, a soon-to-become design legend. He commutes to design college in California on his Suzuki GS750ES with a couple of friends. One had a VF750, and the other a Bonneville. But ultimately, even with all their horsepower, they couldn’t shake him off. This experience sparked something within him, leading to his anti-plastic mantra in an era dominated by plastic.
## The Journey to Ducati
Years later, Miguel gets a job at Opel but soon quits to join the motorcycle design world. His love for minimalism gets rekindled when he sees a stripped-down Ducati 851 in a Japanese magazine. His designs for naked roasters get rejected by Honda, leading him to Cagiva, who at the time were running Ducati. This interview in 1989 could not have come at a better time for Miguel, as Ducati was looking for fresh blood to redesign their 900SS.
## The Birth of the Ducati Monster
In typical real-life fashion, nothing goes according to plan. Despite redesigning the 900SS successfully, Miguel’s vision of a stripped-down 851 is put on hold. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Miguel decides to start a skunkwork project in summer of ’91. He borrows Claudio Castiglioni’s 888 Strada and begins working on creating a naked roaster. The project had to be cheap and realistic, utilizing existing parts like the 851’s Trellis frame.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Ducati Monster was born out of Miguel Galluzzi’s vision and determination, becoming a timeless icon in the motorcycle world.
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