THE SHOP THAT MADE DUCATI FAST

Ducati handed NCR engines and chassis and let them make the machines lighter, brighter and more powerful, then race them across Europe against the official teams. In NCR's own words, to an extreme degree.

A Ducati 750NCR won the twenty four hours of Montjuich in 1973, and again in 1975. Cannellas and Perugini took the thousand kilometres of Mugello.

No historical photograph of that shop is on this site yet. The frame above says so rather than borrowing one.

In November 2001 the Poggipolini family took over the brand. They had been precision machinists in titanium since 1950, for Formula 1, MotoGP and aerospace. Cycle World dates the combination to 2002; NCR's own pages say November 2001.

What changed was the ambition. NCR stopped being a racing team and became a maker of complete, hand-built, very light motorcycles on Ducati engines.

The first was the 100ONE in 2002, at 130 kg. Then the Macchia Nera in 2003, then the Millona in 2005, whose One Shot version weighed 120 kg. Italy certified NCR as a motorcycle manufacturer in early 2005.

The titanium on number twelve is that creed, made small enough to hold.

Ducati North America asked NCR for a tribute to Cook Neilson's 1977 Daytona win. NCR built fifty, track only, on the Sport 1000S. From NCR's side it was a project developed jointly with Ducati North America, on their request.

At Daytona in March 2007 the crew was headed by Michele Poggipolini. Calisto Poggipolini, then in his eighties, formed the upper shock mount for the bike by hand. Cycle World gives his age as 81; a later interview gives 80 in 2012.

The depth of that story lives on the No.12 page. This screen points at it rather than telling it twice.

[PLACEHOLDER] Joe Ippoliti is NCR's chief operating officer and chief designer. A few words from him about this site, about the New Blue, and about what NCR is for.

[PLACEHOLDER] "The site is really cool and its great to see such a passionate following of our work from our collectors and racers."

[PLACEHOLDER] "New Blue was a different kind of job for us. Most of what we build starts from a blank sheet and a target weight. This one started from a photograph of a race in 1977, and the brief was to make people feel that day again on a machine they could actually ride. Fifty of them went out into the world. Seeing them looked after, raced, and now counted, is the part of the work we never get to watch from Bologna."

NCR moved out of Borgo Panigale to sit beside the Poggipolini plant at San Lazzaro di Savena, outside Bologna. More than one hundred and fifty NCR motorcycles were built there, every one by hand and tailored to the person who ordered it.

Nothing on NCR's own site is dated after the autumn of 2014, so what they are building now is a question this site cannot answer yet.

This site is independent. It is not affiliated with NCR or with Ducati, and nothing here speaks for them.