ROAD RUNNER

Ducati Pantah 500

ABOUT ROAD RUNNER

A client came to us with a bike that he bought in UK, completely broken and without most of the original parts. This bike was a Ducati Pantah 500, kind of a difficult bike to get nowadays. It was not too much more than a frame, wheels and a engine. Of course the bike was not running and we had no idea for how long it was in that state.

We accept the project, and embrass it like a real challenge. The client was up to have a vintage old race bike. so we started it.

One of the major parts to recover was the engine. When we open it, it was in really bad conditions, so we have to figure it out how we were going to recover a engine like this. We decided to search for a specialist in this kind of bikes.

So, we find D. T. S - Ducati Technical Services based in Wakefield UK, owned by Paul Klatkiewicz a former race biker.

Paul was dealing in preservation and building of classic road, and race Ducati´s for the last 40 years. His machines are known to be fast, light and reliable. They have won regularly awards at various motorcycle shows and have set lap records at multiple circuits. So we thought that he was the man.

We set everything with him and we sent the engine to UK for a full refurbish. 2 months later the engine arrived completely new. He had polished the engine covers like we asked for, and the Pantah had now a 0km engine with full 600cc.

During this process we conceived a design project based on old race bikes, but of course with our personal touch. We thought that a project like this should be very exclusive and edgy, so we came up with the idea of gold, white and petro blue. Our client loved the idea and we started.

The frame was simplified as always, of all the unnecessary supports and it was powder coated pure white.

The bike had no tank, tails or fairing, and our idea was to get a Imola old school aluminum tank. So we bought a Fuel Tank made on TAB II Classics. A Wales company specialised in aluminum motorcycle fuel tanks. They made a Imola tank especially to fit a Pantah frame.

The tank problem was solved finally. Then we bought a fiber glass fairing that we had cut to feat our needs and design look. The asymmetrical hole for the headlight and the fairing support was hand made by us. The tail was sculpted in foam and then we made a single peace in fiber glass. The seat was then made in a vintage look leather to give the exclusive and premium final touch.

We maintain the original thin wheels, because we had no interest in enlarging the tires. Vintage race bikes have thin tires, so that´s we wanted.

The front suspension was the original one from Marzorcchi. The triple trees were beautiful old looking parts, so we decided to recover them as much as possible, and we polish them. The clip-ons are the original ones too. The rear suspension didn´t exist, so we install a pair of Bitubos.

The braking system was totally recovered, sand blasted and putted like new. Completed with stainless steel Hel lines.

The bike had no electrics at all, so we needed to rebuilt everything. Because it´s a race bike, we minimized the most as possible, just finished with a Motogadget speedo under the fairing and not much more stuff.

All wiring was hidden as most as possible under the frame tubes. The lithium batteries and major electric hardware were hidden under the rear tail.

The exhaust system was hand made by us, in stainless steel with small segments like we love to do in our major projects. The muffler is a Spark unit.

Finally the carbs were retuned to use new conic air filters and of course the new heart with 600cc.

To have the overall look minimized we decided to put no fenders on it.

On the design we decided to put many small Maria logos all over it, to symbolize sponsor stickers.

The final touch is a leather belt that grabs the tank to the frame, passing in the middle of the two Monza gas caps.

MECHANIC WORK

Frame work

New tail custom made in fiber glass

New leather seat

New Imola aluminum tank

New fiber glass fairing