If You Are Going To Have A Motorcycle,

buy a fast one,

 is one school of thought, and they do not come much faster than this one, it all started with the the imagination of Parts World CEO Andy Matter, who teamed up with with Ducati Zentralschweiz, Schaub Metalworks and exhaust giant Akrapovic to form the ultimate dream team, 

 named the Blue Shark, it started its life with zero kilometers on the clock as a brand new Panigale R, straight from the Ducati Zentralschweiz showroom floor, which incidentally straight out of the box is capable of sprinting from 0 to 60 mph in just three seconds to go to a top speed of 202 mph, master craftsman Raphael Schaub of Schaub Metalworks, works metal by hand, there’s no 3D printers or fancy CAD modelling here, offering up pieces of 2mm aluminum sheet, he simply visualizes the components and forges them by hand, the first of these incredible parts is the gas tank that had to be party silky smooth cafe racer on the outside and part complex mix of angles and parts to work with the EFI on the inside, 

 wanting all the bodywork to be as functional as possible, the next step was to recreate the ram air intake in alloy instead of the factory’s original carbon fiber, mounted below the headlight, the shark mouth-like opening actively forces air into the air-box to assist in plenum pressurization, above, the twin headlights are gone, replaced with a traditional unit that now wears an alloy fairing and a frenched-in yellow screen with some industrial-style fittings for more of the old-school look,

 the paint job was done at Burkhardts, and the amazing thing is this motorcycle is 100% road legal, “My personal goal was to create something new; a radical cafe racer that is still usable and rideable under all conditions. I also wanted to make something unique by thinking out of the box, which isn’t always easy. I guess it is like a great painting – you can’t finish it in one sitting, but instead it takes countless hours and a lot of dedication and determination.”

and for most of us, this is all we will see of it as it accelerates into the distance, would I like one? yes please! and no I am not on commission, just one small thing though, it would be nice to have a shopping basket on the front, for when we pop down to Friendship for our weekly shop, photographs by Lorenz Richard.