Massimo Bordi Talks About Ducati's New Era
Q&A
Massimo Bordi talks about Ducati’s new era
EVEN BY THE ERRATIC STANDARDS OF ITALIAN industrial management, Cagiva’s recent monetary woes were self-inflicted wounds of mammoth proportion. The financial crisis threatened Ducati’s very existence until a deal was struck with San Francisco-based investment house Texas Pacific Group for a reported $325 million.
The transaction gives TPG a 51 percent holding in a new company called Ducati Motor SpA, an independent entity from the money-sapping Cagiva Group. Cagiva’s Castiglioni brothers retain 49 percent control, with 2 percent of TPG’s majority holding “parked” in trust with an Italian bank as a guarantee of good faith between the parties.
Cycle World recently talked with Massimo Bordi, who has been appointed to direct Ducati’s turnaround. Now 48, Bordi has been with the company since 1978 and was the technical engineer behind the liquid-cooled, eight-valve motors that came to rule Superbike racing. -Alan Cathcart
Q: First, how did Ducati get in such a financial mess?
A: We grew very fast from 1990 to 1995, thanks to success in Superbike racing which fueled a demand for our products. In ’95, we produced more than 20,000 bikes for the first time-all of them sold, with a big waiting list we couldn’t satisfy. But even then, we were experiencing financial difficulties caused by problems elsewhere in the Cagiva Group. Ducati was creating a very healthy cashflow, but hardly any of it stayed with us! It was going in other directions, starving Ducati of the money we had earned for ourselves. We couldn’t pay our suppliers, so they stopped delivering...and at the end of July ’96 the crunch came-we had to shut down the factory completely.
Q: How will TPG’s buyout affect Ducati’s future?
A: Firstly, I must emphasize that Ducati Motor SpA is now a completely independent company, quite separate from the Cagiva Group, which is merely one of our shareholders. I am appointed by the board to manage Ducati without any outside interference, with our own separate commercial, financial, publicity, styling and engineering departments, and of course quite separate management.
With the substantial investment that TPG is bringing to Ducati, we project our annual production to leap forward to 28,000 bikes in 1997, with an emphasis on improved quality. After that, our business plan calls for us to increase this figure by 5000 bikes per year for the next four years, up to the year 2001, but we will never build more than 50,000 bikes a year.
Q: The ST2 certainly is an impressive piece. What else will we see in the near future?
A: First, I can promise that no Ducati will ever be built with more than two cylinders. We will launch an eight-valve ST4 at the Milan Show in September, and also develop the ST4S, a sport-touring special with a 120-hp engine. The ST2 has big torque, while the ST4 uses more revs and has more power. We need to work on the two-valve SS range next, with new styling, an improved chassis and uprated engine, though still based on the existing model. We have many ideas how to improve the present desmodue without losing its basic appeal, especially by working on the cylinder-head design and the induction system.
Q: Does the same philosophy apply to the 916? Isn’t it time for a new Superbike engine?
A: Our program for the desmoquattro family calls for continued refinement of the existing products, while work begins on an all-new replacement engine. It’s true that the Honda VFour has caught us up in World Superbike, but I honestly believe we can still get better performance out of the existing engine and bike by further improving the cooling system, aerodynamics, thermodynamics and fuel injection-there’s more to come in so many areas. With every race engine, there comes a time when you can no longer see any way to improve it. That moment has not yet come with the desmoquattro.
Q: So far, we’ve been talking mostly of variations on the existing themes. What about completely new families of bikes?
A: If that’s your way of asking when will there be a street version of the Supermono racer, the answer is soon-within the next two years! I am personally more proud of the Supermono engine than anything else I have ever created. We hope to launch the Supermono Strada for the 1999 model year.
Q: In the so-called “Year of the Twin,” Honda and Suzuki have brought serious challengers to market. Your thoughts on this new competition?
A: Honda has been very clever. Some of their engineering solutions are quite interesting, especially the horizontally split crankcase and the cylinders cast into the upper half. I think the Honda styling is awful-very dull and boring-but I like the engineering package much better than the Suzuki, whose only significant benefit over the Honda is that it’s fuel-injected.
But as clever as the Japanese are, they can’t see inside our heads, so they can only copy what we already have, not what we have been planning for over two years to do next. With the revitalization of Ducati thanks to the arrival of TPG, we can make the next step forward in the evolution of the twin-cylinder sportbike-and it won’t be like the VTR!
Q: Presumably racing will continue to play a vital part in Ducati’s future?
A: Our continued heavy involvement in sporting activities is necessary, because Ducati’s image has been integrally related to sport, ever since 1956 when we first went grand prix racing. Our customers expect us to compete, not only to develop new products but also to demonstrate our leadingedge four-stroke technology. TPG understands this philosophy, and actively supports it.
One area of racing we want to become involved in is World Endurance. I’d hoped to run a team in all the 24-hour races and the Suzuka 8-Hours this year, but we ran out of time. I promise Ducati will contest the World Endurance series in 1998-and we intend to do well.
Q: With financial troubles handled, it must be an exciting time for Ducati.
A: I feel like I’ve been reborn! The company that I loved, that I’d spent my adult life working for, was being dragged down into bankruptcy through no fault of its own, and I was powerless to prevent it. Then came TPG and immediately their executives understood what was needed for us not only to survive, but to grow and expand in the way we should have been doing all along. This is truly a new era for Ducati. U
