178kg dry, 208bhp, double wings, all the electrickery. Where do we sign?
Okay, it’s not much of a surprise – indeed, this is one of the most heavily-trailed new bikes of 2020. But it’s still good to see it in the flesh at last. Our man Boothy was in Rimini (that’s a town in the north-east of Italy, rather than a rude pastime) to see all the new Doocatis in the flesh, and the Streetfighter V4 was the pick of the crop.
On the face of it, it’s simply the Panigale V4 with the fairing whipped off. Like the Aprilia Tuono or the Yamaha MT10, the base superbike foundations have been largely moved over into a naked format. No bad thing of course.
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But behind the headline figures, we imagine there’s been a lot of work gone into this beastie. A hefty engine retune means it actually has more rear-wheel thrust in third gear than the Panigale. And the chassis has been fettled to suit the differing needs of a hyper-naked as compared with a superbike.
The design show-stopper is the ‘biplane’ dual wing installation, which is even more important here because there’s no fairing to help the aerodynamic function. The result is 28kg of downforce at high speed (167mph), 20kg on the front wheel, 8kg on the rear wheel. They also help the airflow through the cooling radiators too, which is nice.
It goes without saying that it also comes with all the electronic bells and whistles that Ducati can muster – wheelie control, smart traction, top-end ABS, quickshifter, power modes etc etc. The ‘S’ version also adds the Öhlins electronic suspension setup, as well as forged aluminium Marchesini rims.
None of this comes cheap of course – the base bike costs £17,595 +otr, and the S is £19,795 +otr. Worth it? We’ll find out on the riding launch soon…
