Agreed on all aspects exceeeept the new V4R statement. I think when you see the price of the new V4R you’ll be like “$50k for a base R plus another $10k for options? Plus another $2-3k to track prep (because you think the braking system or suspension is inevitably not enough)! No thanks!” Also, the tech isn’t going to be anything new compared S model. You’re going to have all those electronic nannies but tuned for the 998 cc engine. Ducati is straying away from being an innovation company and becoming an accounting company. Copy paste is the easiest and most efficient way to profitability
I agree to some extent. Ducati seems to want to build a brand based on a veneer of a track bike. It is a very capable track bike for a certain level of riding ability, but even at the pointy end of A group I think it’s reached its limits. Which in some ways is brilliant business, that I have to give them credit for. They built a cache around their brand with MotoGP…and then they sell over priced beautiful bikes that have good performance up to a limit. But that limit is above their intended audience.
If you want a sexy street bike that you can tell people that’s it’s a track weapon you can do so credibly with the bike. But for die hard track guys, or a track only dedicated bike, it’s an almost silly option on all fronts, both on price and peak performance capabilities. I think there are very few riders that track a lot where the Ducati hits the sweet spot…it’s either way too much bike for track day guys that are at the slower end of A group and below…or not enough bike compared to the competition for the fastest track day riders. If you are one of those few that are right in the middle between being genuinely fast at track but not quite there yet…and you have a good amount of disposable income so it doesn’t matter to you that you can get the same performance for half the price elsewhere…well in that narrow band of consumers it’s a great option.
Honda on the other hand sells every kind of bike imaginable for every kind of rider. Lots of them and very profitably. So they don’t need to pretend to be something more than they are on a particular model.
Whatever level rider you are and whatever type of riding experience you want they have a model for that. So with their Fireblades they can afford to build a bike that truly is a track weapon with easy to get HRC parts and sell just enough of them to serve that audience and give them exactly what they want at a reasonable price.
There is a REASON Honda sells more bikes than anyone else…they build the kind of bike you want…whatever that may be, and sell it at a fair price and build it with good reliability.
The more I look into them the more I’m becoming a bit of a fan boy of their business model as a Business Analyst by profession.
I admire what Ducati’s doing with their marketing and product development from an Analysts perspective…but as a consumer I prefer to buy from a company like Honda I think.
It’s like the difference between Porsche versus Ferrari buyers historically. If you want good performance and a very sexy brand you buy a Ferrari and have pride that you over paid for the performance level you got because it’s a FERRARI. But if you want incredible performance at a price that’s fair for what you get in a very reliable machine you get a Porsche, and take comfort in knowing that your car is better in almost every way than the million dollar super cars.
Ducati is Ferrari these days.
