Mr.R wroteInteresting to note the blind allies the factory went up during the development of the 851/888/926's.
Like the letterbox fuel tank, under braced swinging arm and the floating rear brake caliper, all of which disappeared on later Corse bikes.
Steve R
'Blind allies' (sic), well excuse me, I think that you will find that Ducati may have been trialling new ideas on the track. You have to remember that during this period of time Ducati' finances were not in the strongest of positions, there certainly would not have been a room full of computers in the R&D dept. for computer analyse data.
The letterbox on the tank was a a valid attempt to get more air in with the given knowledge that they had at the time, it was only with the development of the 916 that they began to fully comprehend that there may have been an advantage with a sealed airbox system.
If you look carefully at the swingarm that is fitted to the early bike, which Scott has posted an image up of, you will see that the main body is plain sided which could indicate a lesser quality alloy and perhaps the need for additional bracing. Furthermore as mentioned earlier, the lack of Computer analysis data may have been a risk too far for them to omit the bracing... after all Colin Chapman's race cars would often not finish due to breakages as he was trying to make things as light as possible and adding weight and strength as required...a dangerous approach on two wheels!
