1988 ducati 851 tri-colore

Year: 1988

Make: Ducati

Model: 851 TRI-COLORE

Engine Capacity: 850cc

Odometer: 37,769 KMs

Rego: Unregistered

One of 304 homologation "Strada bikes". Refer to the letter attached from Ducati's HQ confirming the bikes authenticity. The launch of the 851 in 1987 immediately refreshed Ducati’s image and impressed test riders with the power of its engine. The engine was based on the Ducati Pantah with the key difference being the electronic fuel injection, liquid cooling and desmodromic four valve heads.

Continuous improvements have made it the most important four-stroke motorbike of its time, demonstrating both the style and spectacular technical expertise of the Ducati brand.

It was the Ducati 851 which first served notice that high-performance sportbikes and World Superbike racing would no longer be Japanese-only affairs. Where before Ducatis made do with simple air-cooled motors, the 851 had liquid-cooling, four-valve desmodromic cylinder heads and electronic fuel-injection. In 1990 Raymond Roche rode a factory 851 to the World Superbike championship, the first of 13 titles to date for Ducati. The 916 gets most of the fame and is more instantly recognizable, but it’s really the earlier 851, introduced in 1987, that paved the way for Ducati’s World Superbike success and the company’s return to racing glory. The older Pantah-derived air-cooled L-twin engines were certainly high-performance motors in their day, but had been long-since eclipsed by the inline fours from Japan, and Ducati needed something new if they wanted to compete on relatively equal footing with 750cc inline fours in the brand-new World Superbike Championship.

Ducati kept the proven foundation of their v-twin, but added liquid cooling and brand new four-valve heads to create their “Desmoquattro” that pumped out 93hp along with plenty of fat midrange torque and gave the newly introduced 851 the performance to compete, factoring in a bit of a displacement bump that allowed the twins approximate parity with the smaller, revvier inline fours. Wrapped around that heavily updated engine was Ducati’s distinctive trellis frame and chunky bodywork, along with ergonomics that were considered extreme at the time, but seem positively luxurious compared to the masochistic 916 that came later. For a while there, the 851 and the 888 that followed were less desirable than the gorgeous 916. But as they say, “familiarity breeds contempt” and with so many of Tamburini’s masterpiece running around, it’s hard not to be a bit blasé about them now. But the 916 would never have existed without the success of the 851 and that functional bodywork has a style all its own.

If you’re looking to get close to your racing heroes, style yourself a Very Serious Motorcyclist™, or just like the idea of riding something with genuine links to legitimate race bikes, homologation specials offer their owners a taste of the trick parts and lightweight performance available to professional racers, all in a streetable package. This 851 Superbike wears its Italian heritage proudly, and takes things a bit beyond what you’d normally expect in terms of road-legal performance: its about as close to a road-legal race bike as you’re likely to find.

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