The Panigale Final Edition
The 1299 Panigale R Final Edition is Ducati’s final flagship V-twin sportsbike and it’s as glorious as it is excessive and exclusive
AT TICKOVER, DUCATI’S final flagship twin-cylinder sports bike is an aural time machine. The erratic clattering from the 1299 FE’S top-ends mixes with the slow-motion machine-gun fire from the exhausts to create an offbeat racket that hasn’t changed much since the Ducati 851 first took production racing by storm 30 years ago. Anyone standing next to that original 851 warming up for its first Battle of The Twins race at Daytona in 1987 would have heard much the same clatter and, I guess, had the same thoughts as me today, listening to the FE before heading out into 2017’s winter sunshine for a cross-country blast to Donington Park.
First thought: is it really meant to sound like that? If you’re used to the silky thrum of a four-cylinder bike, the noise of a highly tuned Ducati V-twin is infinitely more complex, more charismatic and seemingly much closer to mechanical disaster. If a Japanese four is a roll on a snare drum, a big racing Ducati is an orchestra’s entire percussion department. Falling down the stairs.
Next thought: surely something that sounds so raw and unbalanced at tickover can’t possibly get to high enough revs to make any power, or last a race? Onlookers in the Daytona paddock soon had their answer – Marco Lucchinelli won, starting a trend that would see Ducati V-twins dominating World Superbikes for decades.
And it’s no wonder the 1299 sounds like that first 851: the two engines are fundamentally the same — both eight-valve water-cooled V-twins with desmodromic valves and electronic ignition. So even though the 1299 FE has come a long way (power, for example,
has risen from the 851’s 93bhp to a barking 209bhp) it’s an evolution. No wonder it was a big deal for Ducati to end the line and go to a V4 for 2018: that’s a revolution, after so much time, energy and expertise invested in big-capacity V-twins.
What’s the final one, all £35 grand of it, like to ride? As I weave through traffic out towards Rutland’s finest swervery, it copes. The FE feels like an arsey teenager just about holding it together at a tedious family shindig when it really wants to flounce out. It barks through its £4000 Akrapovič exhaust system below 4000rpm, but throttle response is acceptably smooth and it chugs and lurches less than my old Monster.
Heat pours off the rear cylinder and exhaust pipe, at first providing a wonderful heated-saddle effect on this chilly day and then carrying on until I’m shuffling from side to side to alternate plum cookery. Gawd knows what it would be like in summer. There’s a carbon fibre heat shield above the pipe, but it’s no match for what the extraordinary motor emits.
The quickshifter doesn’t seem to like all this traffic-enforced pottering either – if you’re rumbling through town at 30mph in first and decide to go up a gear to try quietening the engine, the quickshifter bangs into second with a wallop, the bike lurching forward. The message is clear – the 1299 FE is not designed for dawdling. And don’t get me started on the pitiful steering lock.
But once the traffic clears and we head out on the A606 towards Melton Mowbray everything begins to make more sense. If you’re accelerating hard, the shifter is slick and an icy 80mph breeze lowers spud
“No rider will ever return home without a grin”
temperature nicely. Suspension that moments earlier was crashing over potholes starts moving towards its operating zone, giving feedback not pain. Even the vibrating mirrors clear enough to discern a juggernaut from a bicycle.
But I’m using the phrase ‘makes sense’ loosely, because from 8000rpm to the 11,000rpm redline the 1299 FE is, without question, the most ridiculously, absurdly, terrifyingly rapid device I’ve ever ridden. A Kawasaki H2 is fast but it feels planted and secure, like a rocketpowered bank vault. The FE twitches and shimmies as trees and hedges merge into a green smear and the classy TFT dashboard flashes, indicating things that better riders than I might have the wherewithal to look
at. Traction control light? Wheelie control? Change up a gear? No idea. Half my concentration is on the horizon, peering over the pleasingly tall and useful screen, while the other half attends to holding on.
Ye Gods, that engine is phenomenal at the top end. And it’s as jaw-droppingly mental in fourth as it is in first and second (probably in fifth too, but I wasn’t brave enough to test it). Sixth, meanwhile, feels like overdrive. Thankfully, the brakes – top-spec radial Brembos backed up by ABS – are equally phenomenal, should you need to haul it up in a hurry.
The FE is whoop-out-loud fast and no rider will ever return home on this Ducati without a wide-eyed grin, but there are problems with this speed. First, because the suspension is race-track firm even on its softer settings, your eyes get rattled about like lottery balls on anything but the smoothest road and it was vision that
limited my speed more than anything else, especially when I turned onto the brilliant but not bump-free B4067. Second, if you hoik the throttle open at the top end you go throw-away-the-key fast in less than a second. Open throttle, gasp, jail. Simples.
But, hey, with a claimed 209bhp, owners would be disappointed if it wasn’t a headcase. More of a surprise is that it’s almost docile in the midrange. Obviously it’s blisteringly rapid compared to normal traffic and you can waft about on part throttle and medium revs destroying all-comers, but there’s no bulging midrange clout for any-gear overtakes. Initially I thought it was the electronics in first and second stopping the FE from sending me sliding along on my nicely toasted arse, but it’s actually the engine’s tune. It really is a race-bike motor, with a murderous top-end for speed and a silky midrange for midcorner pick-up and drive.
Admiring the FE outside Donington’s museum, it’s easy to spot the other race influences. The forks are race-developed Öhlins NIX 30s, the rear shock is an Öhlins TTX36 with an adjustable linkage. Beautifully finished carbon fibre is everywhere, from the front mudguard to the rear hugger, and the machined yokes are a delight – especially the scalloped lower section that locks the steering when you twist the ignition and a bolt appears from the aluminium monocoque chassis.
Ducati claims a piffling 179kg (dry) and judging by the componentry, I believe it.
But there are also detail niggles. The black plastic strip round the screen seems out of place on a £35k motorcycle and the left-hand switchgear is a hotchpotch – the buttons are crammed in and the levers for adjusting the traction control are on an extra collar that’s been slid onto the bar beside the main unit. And the plastic of the switchgear feels cheap and flimsy. Sitting next to the machined beauty of the yokes,
it looks a bit naff. Also, the left bar end weight pokes out too far.
Stomach full of all-day breakfast, I decide to save the museum for another day. When you have a 1299 FE outside and only two hours of sunshine left, it seems perverse to hang around looking at old stuff. So I fire up the latest V-twin relic and chase the setting sun home, arriving tired, aching, and – like riders of the 851 all those years ago – grinning like an idiot. That new V4 has a lot to live up to...
“It really is a race-bike motor”