DUCATI Brand History
The Ducati Company was founded in 1926 by the three Ducati brothers,
Bruno, Adriano and Marcello. At first, the company had nothing to do
with motorcycles, but managed electrical components. Then the Italian
government took over the company during the Second World War and pushed
Ducati into making motorcycles.
The first motorized attempt on behalf of Ducati was the clip-on 50cc
bicycle engine produced in 1946. In the 1950, the Italian company
developed its first vehicle, the 1952 Cruiser 175cc, a scooter which had
electric starter and automatic transmission. One year later (1953),
Ducati came up with a 98cc version of this vehicle and they soon
increased its capacity to 125cc.
In 1954, engineer Fabio Tagnoli joined the company, thing which would
prove to be extremely good for the company as they came up with several
spectacular models by the end of 1956. We are talking about the four
stroke Tourist 174 and Special and Sport models which could reach up to
135 km/h, a considerable performance for that time. All these models
were presented to the public in 1957 at the Milan Salon.
Tagnoli worked for three years on a desmodronic system, from 1955 to
1958, system which was adopted on the 250cc bike ordered by a famous
English racer Mike Hailwooda, in 1960. Also in 1958, Ducati came up with
the 200cc bike called Elite.
