V-Twin Ducati 1299 Panigale Motorcycle Could Continue Production Until 2020
It sounds like the all-new Ducati Panigale V4 will be sold alongside its predecessor for a few years.
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Out of all of the exciting motorcycles that were presented at EICMA in Milan last month, the star of the show seemed to be the widely-rumored
Ducati Panigale V4 superbike. With a new engine derived from MotoGP, the new Ducati is sure to be one of the best-performing street bikes the world has ever seen. But what does that mean for the V-twin Ducati sport bikes we know and love?
Based on a report from Motorcycle News, it sounds like Ducati will hang on to V-twin sport bikes for as long as possible. The current apex sport bike in Ducati’s lineup is the 1299 Panigale R Final Edition, which is powered by a Superquadro V-twin engine that makes 209 horsepower and 104 pound-feet of torque. Luckily for Europe, the 1299 Panigale R Final Edition is Euro4 emissions approved and Ducati can sell as many of them as it wants until 2020.
So it sounds like the V-twin powered 1299 Panigale will be built alongside the all-new Panigale V4 for as long as legally possible. It’s kind of like Ducati will have not one, but two halo bikes in its sport bike lineup. After the current 1299 Panigale does expire, Ducati has no intention of abandoning the concept of a V-twin sportbike.
“We won’t see middleweight versions of the V4 for bikes like the 959 Panigale,” Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali told Motorcycle News. "The engine cost is very high. We’ll keep on making the V-twin for the 959. It’ll have a long life." In other words, it seems that it would just be too expensive to develop another, smaller V-4 and the V-twin 959 Panigale isn’t going anywhere for a while.
We reached out to Ducati asking if the same plan to continue the 1299 Panigale applied to the U.S. and we haven’t heard back. We’ll update this story if we receive confirmation. Until then, get stoked for the Panigale V4 arriving soon.
