Ducati Bevel Special
Two bevel-head chefs from Australia cook up one Michelin-starred motorcycle. What a Ducati dish…
Here’s a down under delight cooked up by two chefs… take a 1976 900SS bevel-drive motor and spice it up with a race-bred chassis, top-line modern chassis parts, a dash of Duke 888 and a dollop of Ducati 916. The end result is an endurance-racer lookalike which really looks the part.
What you see here is one very special bevel. You see, the builder, Tony Hannagan, is a legend down under in the secretive world of those that worship at the altar of the bevel-driven Dukes.
Tony owns Beveltech, Australia’s go-to bevel place, where over the decades, many amazing race engines have been built, original bikes restored, customs created and dreams made into reality. Great things can’t go on forever, though, and a few years back at the young age of 60, Tony decided to build his last customer creation and concentrate on engines while enjoying his own many bikes…
It just happened that at around this time, the owner of this incredible machine, Daniel Poole, was edging closer to biting the bullet and buying his dream bike, a bevel-drive Ducati.
Daniel says: “For years I dreamed of owning a bevel and in particular, I had fallen in love with a custom bevel that was well-known in that community as ‘Vern’. This was built by Tony, so I went about contacting him to find out which particular models are the best donor bikes for such a project, to which he replied: ‘Well I am building something at the moment similar to Vern but better!’
“That got my attention. We discussed the plan, the bike, and the build and then Tony offered me the opportunity to buy in before the bike was done so I could have some input into the build and ultimately at the end, purchase the bike.
“Another reason I was very keen was thattony announced it would be his last customer custom build, so that made it extra special.tony would continue on engines and pre-ordered work but this one would be his last build to sell.”
It was all good timing then, Daniel got in on the project just at the right time to have enough input to make the bike his, while leaving the main design totony of course.
“I had input into the paint colour and scheme, running gear like clip-ons, wheels, rear-sets,” says Daniel. “But to be honest I really just wanted this build to be pretty muchtony’s influence and something that he was really proud to put his name on. He created Vern after all, which was the bike that got me hooked on bevel-drive Ducatis.”
Vern is one hell of a bike. It is a worked 900SS motor in a modified 860 frame with modern running gear and Ducati 916 geometry. And as you can see in the photos, Vern2 is a sibling of Vern. Maybe we should call him ‘Big Vern?’ And yes, they have Viz comic in Australia.
“CHASSIS-WISE, THIS ONE-OFF IS STUNNING: IT'S A 1975 VERLICCHI MONOSHOCK FRAME WITH A STOCK 1976 900SS WITH OVERSIZE PISTONS.”
Cooking up a storm…
While the old adage ‘too many cooks spoil the broth,’ the reverse was true with Vern2, because Tony used to be a chef himself and Daniel is a bit of a celebrity chef down under. He spends his time in the super rich superyacht scene, where he travels the globe chasing the sun and cooking for the rich and famous: food, motorcycles, bevel-drives; these guys were going to work well together.
Vern2 started life as a one-off super-rare endurance frame sitting on the floor gathering dust in a shop in Italy.
“I came across a rare monoshock race frame in Imola,” says Tony. “It was designed to run in the Barcelona 24-hour race in 1975 but was banned at the last minute for being illegal. It needed two rear shocks. The rest of the bike is an amalgamation of parts I have collected over the past 40-odd years”.
The engine is a stock 1976 900SS with first oversize pistons, with a bore of 86mm and a stroke of 74.4mm, making a modest 70hp, with a compression ratio of 8.5:1, stock cams, valves, just some neat port matching and careful assembly by Tony.
New valve guides and seats were inserted, new valves used as well.the bottom-end is completely rebuilt with new bearings, gears where needed, and a lightweight Sureflex clutch used, the crankshaft runs on new bearings and the con-rods are new. Fuelling has to be by Dell’orto, with a pair of unfiltered 40mm carburettors feeding the big two-valve cylinders.
An uprated Ducati Elettronica ignition system is used. The exhaust itself is gorgeous, with Tony making the two-into-one under-seat system with removable baffle for track days. The bike is tuned to run on 91-octane pump fuel and final drive is a 520 conversion.
Chassis-wise, this one-off is stunning. The 1975 Verlicchi monoshock frame is chrome moly, as is the Verlicchi swingarm. Powdercoated red, the frame has stock 900SS yokes holding modified 38mm Marzocchi forks with 15w oil. Out the back a fullyadjustable Showa shock with piggyback reservoir is used. Magura alloy clip-ons steer, with period switchgear.
The front mudguard is a Ducati 851 replica and the front wheel a cast alloy Brembo 3.5 x 17in powder-coated black and wearing a 120/70-17 Pirelli SC2. Both wheels originally came from an Aprilia RS250. Front discs are cast iron, full-floating Brembo race discs squeezed by Brembo four-piston calipers (circa 1988) and sintered pads via a Brembo master-cylinder. It stops!
At the rear, you’ve another Brembo cast alloy wheel powder-coated black, 4.50 x 17in and wearing a 160/60-17in Pirelli SC2. The rear brake disc is a solid-mount Brembo grabbed by a two-piston Brembo caliper. Brakes front and back have braided brake lines.
The stunning bodywork is made up from a glass fibre Ducati SS replica fuel tank, Ss-styled stunning single seat and tail, and Ss-styled fairings. Paint is by Beveltech using 2 Pack and Cutgraphix decals.the clocks are Veglia (naturally) in a carbon-fibre surround, the tacho being a super rare 100mm white-faced item worth its weight in gold, apparently…
All of the electricals are neatly placed up front behind the fairing on a custom top fairing mount and finally (giving Vern2 a face) are those awesome 1970s-era endurance headlamps. Like two big eyeballs, they really give Vern2 a personality of its own, don’t you think?
“The big thing for me,” smiles Daniel, “is that it is a 1975 one-off frame, it will be registered as a 1975 model and I was born in 1975 so Vern2 couldn’t be more suited to me!”