Seeking improved aerodynamics and faster tire swaps in the pits, Massimo
Tamburini unwittingly penned a squinty-eyed racer with an underseat
exhaust and single-sided swingarm that exuded sex — the Ducati 916.
Powered by a Desmodromic L-twin engine, this new Duc was down on power
compared to the Japanese inlines, but its omnipresent torque made corner
exits its bitches and left everyone behind to admire a beautiful
back-end. Not only did the Ducati 916 capture four of five World
Superbike Championships in the late ‘90s, it also beat out Pamela
Anderson for poster space on many a teenage wall. The Ducati 916 was
also featured in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit at the Guggenheim
Museum. Bellissima!Design and development
The first development of the 916 model family can be traced back to the development of the four-valve Ducati engine, the Desmoquattro, through the development and racing of the earlier Pantah models, to the road-going 851 and 888 models.
The chief designer of Ducati motorcycles since the 1970s was Fabio Taglioni (1920–2001). He introduced the Pantah in 1979; its engine was updated in the 1990s in the SuperSport (SS) series and all modern Ducati engines are derivatives of the Pantah, which used its camshafts to both open and close the engine's valves, eliminating the usual valve closing springs, a system called 'desmodromic'. Taglioni, did not, however, have an interest in four-valve head engines, and so this was left to his successor.The eight-valve V-twin was the work of Taglioni's successor, Massimo Bordi.
Making its debut in 1994, the Ducati 916 was admired because of its new design and outstanding technical features. Designed by Massimo Tamburini and Sergio Robbiano and his team at the Cagiva Research Centre in San Marino,the 916's water-cooled engine was a revision of that of its predecessor, the 888,with larger displacement and a new engine management system. The greater displacement was accomplished by increasing the crankshaft stroke from 64 mm to 66 mm, keeping the same 94 mm bore size as the 888, resulting in a capacity of 916 cc. (By the time the 916 was introduced, the final 851/888 Corse engines had also had their bore sizes increased to 96 mm resulting in 'race only' capacities of 926 cc and 955 cc respectively.)
The 916 was a smaller motorcycle than the 888, with a chrome-moly trellis frame which was shared with the Ducati 748 in 1995 and beyond.This was combined with striking new bodywork that featured aggressive lines.
Design of the Ducati 916 was a balance between function and form:
The single-sided swingarm was beautiful, but designed to make wheel changes faster during races
The underseat exhausts improve aerodynamic performance, and resultantly gave very clean lines. This feature was initially introduced on the Honda NR, and although Ducati was not the first, it has remained one of the trademark features of 916 line.
Journalist Kevin Ash suggests that although the 916 was "one of the most influential machines of the last twenty years", the design is actually derivative of the Honda NR750, with the shared elements of underseat exhaust, narrow waist, similar squared-off dual headlights, and single-sided swingarm holding a large-section rear tire.[11]