From basics to beauty
Thursday, 10 March, 2005
Designing award-winning motorbikes takes a touch of genius
“It is three years down the line, and all of a sudden the Ducati 999 has become a beautiful motorcycle. Why?”
Terblanche took a thoughtful sip of his mineral water; “Nothing about the bike has changed. It still looks the same!” Was he resentful? Or just vindicated?
The Ducati 999 was launched to a cynical motorcycling press in 2003, who expected another beauty in the fold of the rather inimitable 916. Compliments were rare.
We were sitting in the warm shade in front of the Sheraton Hotel, waiting for coffee to arrive while sharing some bottled water. Pierre Terblanche is in town for a few days, presenting a session at the Design Indaba. It afforded me a rare and unexpected opportunity to find out why the 999 looks like it does; it is a bike I still struggle to understand.
“We could have given you another Ducati 916.” No, the firmness in his voice was just simple conviction. “But why? Why re-invent the wheel?”
The design of the 999 was meant to push the boundaries and did not prescribe to conventional perceptions of beauty; “People reacted the same when the 851 was launched in the late Eighties. No-one was happy about the looks.”
“People don’t like change, but that is no reason not to. But if I had to design the 999 today, I would probably do it differently.”
You can’t be too conservative, but neither can you be too advanced, he advised. The new Golf V and Jaguar XJ looks too much like the previous examples, and that is hurting sales. But then you get the new Porsche 997, which looks a lot like the old 993, and people like that.
“As a designer, you don’t have a crystal-ball to see what people might like. These are the things that keeps me awake at night” he smiles.
The conversation was drifting away from my obsession with the 999, but I took a last stab; was he apprehensive about designing the 999, considering how successful the 916 was?
“Of course, but it was about more than that. There are so many good products out there these days, how do you distinguish them?”
“That is where the designer comes in; to give it a different look, and convince you are buying something that is different from the others.” Was he getting cynical?
“The same is true for bikes”
Maybe it is worse for bikes; “Because they are so compact, there is very little you can do. Once you have set a wheelbase of, say, 1420mm, a steering angle of 24 degrees, fit the frame, and found a place for the engine and battery, all bikes end up looking the same.”
Of course, the trademark trellis frame of Ducati does help to distinguish its bikes much easier.
It was time to leave, but I had to raise my other favourite gripe that I have with Terblanche: his Ducati Multistrada. I thought it was odd-looking, and unlike with the 999, have not warmed to it yet. “It is our best-selling bike at the moment.” I am disappointed to hear that.
“People might dream about riding like Rossi or Bostrom, but in real life they want a bike they can go shopping with, and throw around on a mountain pass on weekends. The Multistrada is for those people.”
But does it not dilute the brand value?
Terblanche responded without hesitance in his firm but gentle manner: “The Ducati brand values are performance, design and Italian flair, and the Multistrada has all of those. It is not the sportiest Ducati, but it is the sportiest bike in its class.”
My precious few minutes with Terblanche comes to an end, but the questions in my mind are endless. The coffee at the Sheraton did not arrive, but we left anyway.
Has he designed the MotoGP racebike? And will he do the road-going replica? I had to know.
“Actually no, I only designed the swing-arm on the race-bike. And yes, work on the roadbike has started.”
Will it be another watershed design in the history of the marquee? Will it be met with mixed responses again? Perhaps.
But it is the passing of time that has proven to bring out the genius of Terblanche’s work, not instant popularity.
Published in Drive Times (supplement to Cape Times): Thursday, March 10, 2005
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