Motorcycles and Art

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, there's an exhibition on
"The Art of Design" [0].

One of the exhibits is a Ducati 916 Senna. I couldn't see which
number it was, because it was on a plinth. I did notice that there
were tiny specks of dust around the footrest hangers and thought that
JP would be most displeased.

Anyway, I spent quite some time looking at it, as you might imagine.
It's a fantastic piece of design - it really is.

*want*


[0] http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=134 if
you're interested.

 

Aye, it is a nice looking bike -- in the One True Colour too. I used to
follow one on rare occasions when pootling up the Walworth Road . It
sounded utterly gorgeous too.

 

It's a design classic; end of story.

Ducati must be kicking themselves now, because to come up with an
improvement to the looks seems impossible. Certainly they haven't
managed it yet.

 

Serious question: couldn't they have re-designed the underneath, to
make it a better bike while keeping the shape, etc?

 

They could have, but I suspect there may have been an element of
Terblanche wishing to brush aside his predecessor's designes & prove he
could do better himself. So Tamburini (the 916/748 designer) left
Ducati & brought us the MV F4, leaving Terblanche to come up with the
999/749. I know who I think won...

 

Is that Sir's impartial view?

 

Just my personal preference, although the most complimentary comments
I've heard about the 999 styling are 'interesting' & 'challenging'.

 

& "fucking minging"

 

Indeed. Incidentally, I think that new Ducati-engined Bimota looks
*stunning*.

 

"designed by a bloke with two broken arms".

 

If they weren't broken when he drew it, they surely have been since.