Real Done Desmo
REAL DONE DESMO
FORZA ITALIA
A bad, bad thing
BAD ENOUGH THIS TWEAKED 900SS Duck was built by a Norton guy, but did he have to go and paint the blinkin’ thing a blasphemous yellow and blue? Looks like a two-wheeled sidekick of Mark Donahue’s old Sunoco Special Camaro, ferchrissake!
Kenny Dreer of Vintage Rebuilds is like that. Best known for his custom Commandos (you may remember the silvery conveyance located beneath Leeann Tweeden on last September’s “Norton Girl” cover), Dreer speaks Italian, too. “It’s all about torque, armstraightening pull,” he says of his fondness for bevel-drive Ducatis. “They just rocket out of comers.”
This one in particular. Commissioned by Dale Pestes, a mild-mannered 46-year-old Oregon medicalsupplies specialist who blows off steam with such playthings as a streetlegal 8-second Chevy dragster, the Ducati runs a full-house motor liberally sprinkled with all manner of go-fast paraphernalia—crank assembly blueprinted and mirror-polished by Malcolm Tunstall (a $1600 hit!); Imola cams from GMA; Baisley cylinder heads; JE pistons; Kibblewhite valves. The 904 inhales through the gaping maws of two 41mm Dell’Ortos and spits gasses rearward via a flat-nasty set of decibel-generators. The Hammers of Hell probably made less racket.
Harnessing the Desmo’s 100 horsepower is a 1979 frame that’s been treated to a blindingly brilliant coat of nickel-plate. Otherwise, it’s largely stock, though tabs were ground off and smoothed over, the battery box was eliminated and the rear loop was cut and kicked up in preparation for the restyled fiberglass tail cowl. Wider-than-standard Marvic mags grace both ends, as do new Brembo calipers and cast-iron rotors.
That’s a stock steel fuel tank atop the frame rails; the fairing is anything but-it started life on a Yamaha FZR1000. Both are covered in a blatant paint scheme deliberately picked to draw attention. “Yellow is an absolute eye-magnet,” says Dreer. “Then throw in some metallic Cobalt Blue and-whacko/-there you go.”
Nice when a plan comes together.
David Edwards
