Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
I've never been able to confirm this; but wasn't the original F4 design intended to be the next ducati after the 998 style?
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"For sure we've understood that to make the Ducati turn, you need a bigger effort than what Valentino was used to, physically too, and we didn't expect that. This bike is a lot more physical, the way to make it turn with the required precision is certainly the thing we must focus on at the moment."
- J Burgess
AFAIK the original plan was what became the MV was going to be a flagship for Cagiva. I would have to search through my archive of magazines from that time, but IIRC Cagiva purchased the MV name in 1992 or 1993. Ferrari was briefly involved in initial concepts, the radial valve actuation is the only part of their input that remains. Their design had reversed heads with intake on the front and was deemed impractical.
The engine went through several iterations and a long gestation period. One magazine I have had it being tested in a test mule chassis with Cagiva 500GP racer bodywork. The inline four-cylinder was foreign to the heritage of Ducati who had always produced singles and twins. Ducati was already kicking butt in WSBK with its twins, I doubt management would have wanted to completely start over when they were so comeptitive.
In November 1993 the Ducati 916 was unveiled and from the first moment it was obvious that this would be the face of Ducati for some time, it was universally loved. Tamburini and the others at CRC started working then on the MV chassis, obviously using lessons learned from the 916 on components such as the swingarm.
The insolvency and brief shutdown of Ducati followed by the subsequent purchase by the Texas Pacific Group in 1996 saw Cagiva and CRC part ways with Bordi and Ducati.
In many ways, IMO, the MV F4 is the sprititual successor to the 916, but I'm not sure it was ever intended to be a Ducati. The 999 compared to the 916 looks like it is almost from a different company.
you guys are blind... they added led light thingys to the 11 year old headlight its like fresh new diapers on grandpa... worth at least 10 HP at starbucks
New MV Agusta F4 .....
State of the art HD engineering at work....
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