FIRST RIDE
2011 Ducati Diavel
The Diavel is definitely a looker.
So that’s a key reason why Ducati
has gone to the Dark Side, in the
eyes of many dedicated
ducatis-ti, and produced the very devil
of a powercruiser in the aptly-named Diavel - that’s what the
Italian word Diablo, meaning
devil, mutates to in the distinctive
Bolognese accent. And if you say
it to yourself quickly, you’ll know
how come this bike is a devil in
disguise.
So, almost 50 years later,
Ducati’s 15-strong Diavel develop-
ment team led by Giulio Malagoli
have solved that riddle by cre-
ating the new model that was
launched at the Milan Show last
November (and is now in deal-
erships around the world), com-
plete with low 30.3-inch seat, a
stretched 62.6-inch wheelbase,
and a fat 240-section rear tire, all
straight out of any cruiser cata-
logue.
Yet the accusation by many be-
fore they’ve even sat on the new
bike is that by building the Diavel,
Ducati has betrayed its perfor-
mance brand values, is dispelled
in the first five minutes you spend
aboard this radically different-
looking, totally unique-riding,
high-performance Supercruiser.
It is indeed a kind of custom-
class Superbike.
For the Diavel is a downright
ducatista sporting solution to
that crazy conundrum, as evi-
denced by the single most im-
portant set of data comparing it
to the born-again Yamaha V-Max
and Harley-Davidson V-Rod Mus-
cle that are its only real rivals in
the marketplace. And those were
the two bikes that Ducati’s testers
benchmarked before Malagoli’s
men started work on the Diavel
project in January 2008, fast-
tracking the radical new model
from a blank CAD screen to
showroom-ready status in just
three years. Fast work.
For while people the world
over, not least in the USA, get all
excited about how much horse-
power their bike puts out, swap-
