La Casa Emilia

Properties in the heart of Italy

Emilia Romagna is home to one of the finest motorbike producers in the world, Ducati. Its factory is located near Bologna and a trip to its fine museum makes a wonderful day out.

Ducati started out life as a company producing radio parts. During the Second World War, its production was given over to artillery shells and cameras. In the immediate post war years Italians wanted a cheap motorised form of transport and so the ‘Cucciolo’ or puppy came into existence. It was the brainchild of Aldo Farinelli and was a 4-stroke 48cc clip-on engine for bicycles and the first Ducati motorbike! By the mid 1950’s Fabio Taglioni had joined Ducati and by 1955, guided by his engineering genius, Ducati had produced the Gran Sport, a 100cc single-cylinder motorbike. In 1956 Ducati’s 125cc, complete with desmodromic engine and ridden by Gianni degli Antoni, won the Swedish GP, it was Ducati’s first Grand Prix win. Since then Ducati has gone from strength to strength introducing bikes each with a design more sophisticated than the previous.

In 1970 Ducati built it's first V-twin engine, the 90x 750 GT, with bevel-drive cams. In 1978 the famous Pantah engine is introduced. This 500cc desmo V-twin engine, designed by Taglioni, features belt driven cams. The "rubber band" engine proves to be the foundation of a new line of V-twins from Ducati. With the retirement of Taglioni in 1982 the new engineering genius behind Ducati was Massimo Bordi, while the style of the new bikes coming off the production line was the work of Massimo Tamburini. The Paso, introduced in 1982 won Ducati many awards for its revolutionary appearance. In 1985 Cagiva acquired Ducati and the Castiglioni brothers took control of the company. The appearance of the 900cc, 916 and 996 models continued the high tradition of craftsmanship for which Ducati is world famous. In September 1996 the Castiglioni brothers sold 51% of Ducati to the Texas Pacific Group but they kept an option to buy back 2%. The company was renamed Ducati Motor SpA.