My own Pantah SL600 is finally registered! Took photos today which you can see tomorrow. It's good to have the old girl back on the road. In the meantime, this;
Back in the early 80s when my mullet/denim vest combo was frankly making mince-meat of established fashion conventions and non-smoking was illegal in restaurants, the fat-cats at Borgo Panigale had decided that their bevel-gear engines were just too expensive to produce, what with all the labour-intensive shimming and fine adjusting and what-not. Mythical engineer Fabio Taglioni was charged with designing a new engine with the objective of making the whole thing quicker to assemble and therefore cheaper.
Rumour has it Taglioni returned to his desk, lit a cigarette to replace one of two he was smoking at the time and flicked a rubber-band at a nearby graduate engineer for some much-needed stress relief. In that instant he had a revelation; rubber-bands weren’t only useful for shooting at his staff, they could in fact, replace the complicated bevel-gear setup and allow even the most mentally-stunted man-ape to assemble his engine correctly (lucky for me!)*.
This new engine would power Ducatis for decades to come, eventually continuing alongside the 4-valve watercooled powerplant. History was made. And thats as far as I'm going with this article information-wise: enjoy the photos.
*this wasn't an actual rumor before I made it up.
Note: 'rubber-bands' is a figurative term to describe rubber/fibre timing belts. Do NOT use actual rubber bands in your engine. Its worth spending the money on these; trust me, it's cheaper in the long run.
Ducati Australia actually hacked up the side panels in an attempt to make it more attractive, but like high-heels on a sack of boogers, it didn't work. Most ended up fitted with SL running gear and bodywork.