BOLOGNA · 2007
FIFTY OF THEM
Old Blue, the shop in Bologna, and fifty tributes.
SCROLL
1977
OLD BLUE
Old Blue was a Ducati 750SS. It belonged to Cycle magazine, it was prepared by Phil Schilling, and people called it the California Hot Rod.
It won the Daytona Superbike race in March 1977. That win is the reason every machine on this site exists.
The people behind it have a page of their own.
NOVEMBER 2006
THIRTY YEARS ON
Michael Lock, then chief executive of Ducati North America, commissioned a thirtieth-anniversary tribute from NCR, built on the Sport 1000S. Fifty would be made.
It was announced in November 2006 and shown at the Milan show that month. Its American debut was in January 2007.
Neilson and Schilling entered the Ducati North America Hall of Fame at the dealer meeting where the project was unveiled.
THE BUILD
HAND-BUILT IN BOLOGNA
NCR built the run by hand, on demand, and tailored each machine to the owner who ordered it.
The crew that took the bikes to Daytona in March 2007 was headed by Michele Poggipolini.
NCR the company has a page of its own. This chapter is about what they did to this bike line.
WHAT CHANGED
THE KIT
The engine is the NCR 1100. The exhaust is a full titanium 2-1-2 by Zard, four kilograms all in.
Ohlins front and rear, Brembo billet monobloc radial calipers, Braking WAVE rotors, BST carbon wheels, an APTC slipper clutch, Marelli injection, and Poggipolini titanium fasteners throughout.
The seat is leather by Schedoni. The livery is Old Blue's, thirty years on: a silver base under two blues, sanded and polished by hand.
THE NUMBERS
WHAT THE SOURCES SAY
Dry weight: 145 kg. NCR's own project page says 150 kg against 188 kg for the stock machine; its technical page says 145. Cycle World weighed 319 lb, which is 145 kg. The site uses 145.
Power: 116 hp at 8,450 rpm is NCR's claim at the crank. Cycle World measured 102 hp at the rear wheel, up from 76, with 83 lb-ft. Both numbers are true of different things.
Where two sources disagree this site states both and flags the line rather than picking quietly.
THE RUN
FIFTY, NUMBERED
Fifty were built, each numbered, each track only. They were delivered on slicks with no street equipment.
Every one carries the number 31 on the fairing, and a titanium tail signed by Cook Neilson and Phil Schilling.
AFTER THE FIFTY
THE STRADALE
NCR later offered a street-homologated New Blue Stradale, built on demand, on the stock DS1100 engine and heavier for the equipment a road bike has to carry.
It is a different machine from the fifty, and this site keeps the two apart.