Rob's "Dutch-S" Replica Ducati 750 Sport Prototype
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As a lover, rider, wrench and collector of 70's Italian motorcycles, I had been looking for a new project around a roundcase 750 for a while. I totally love the round cases and I just happened to have an defunct, incomplete and dismantled GT laying around in the garage - in boxes.

The obvious choice was to rebuild the GT itself but there was not enough of the bike there to actually make it a feasible project. The next most obvious choice was to build a green frame replica, but i was afraid of the 'yet another-syndrome'. Even if you have a real green frame, most will think it's a rep anyway... so I thought a little bit more and also realized i wanted a unique bike, too.
Something that had not been done before, something very special. Then in 2000, I think it was, I 'rediscovered' the Prototype Sport. A bike that was built to test the market's enthusiasm to a more sporty version of the GT, which needed at least a facelift at the time.
(Remember that the CB750 had just made a huge impact on the market and many motorcycle manufacturers were trying to recover from the blow.) There were three prototype Sports built in 1971/72. Two were running machines and one was a mock up. In true Ducati style, these bikes were all different in many small respects.

The market responded with enthusiasm and hence, as we all know, the Sport was born! The three prototypes were lost - probably shipped back to the factory and dismantled. All that remained were a few pictures, a few memories and, as far as I could find out, no other round cases like this in existence!

My better shaped half, Marcelle, started calling this bike Dutch-S from a partially jealous point of view because of the time, energy and money I was putting into researching and building her - but the name stuck. In some ways this bike has been a mistress to me, i suppose...

Dutch-S has two very obvious characteristics. The colour-scheme and the pipes!

We weren't sure of the black&white colours at the start. The pictures and memories were black&white but it could equally have been brown&caramel, light blue/navy or any other combination that would turn up black&white on a 30 year old photocopy of an article in a Spanish magazine. So there was much dispute about this but we finally decided not to soften the effect and Black&White it was! (Much later on, we got hold of a colour image and it actually was black&white! I think this was the first white framed bike Ducati ever built. Later on there were a few more specials like the 851/888 with white frames, too.) When the frame came back from the painter (no power coating) it was VERY white and i was really worried we had gotten it wrong, but we got used to it and soon, when the bits and pieces were bolted on to the frame it started looking better and better and finally... it looked Great!

The pipes were like the ones Magni still makes for MVs and to be perfectly honest, it was this single feature that was probably the most important reason for me, for building this bike. I just LOVE those curved pipes! We got hold of a new set of Contis and I had a wonderfully competent bloke hand build the curve around the Contis inside. I am happy with the result but if there ever is a next time, i think ill give it more swerve. Problem is that i also wanted it to sound like the Sport so there was a limited amount of swerving possible.
Anyway, this is the result and aside from a few minor problems (bent disc, false air in the rear carb manifold, tyre damage because of a bad mounting of the front fender, difficulty in getting a proper kicker) we did it and the bike rides today, like a dream and attracts admirers everywhere its parked.

Before you all think I did this alone: it wasn't possible without The Man With The Wrench and Ducatist pur sang: Robert Buijs and a whole lot of people who advised, helped and supplied bits and pieces to make this project finally succeed!

Rob
[email protected]

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