The craze of owning a superbike has increased multi folds over the last few years. It’s almost normal to see superbikes racing around on highways every Sunday with their biking groups. Even though owning a superbike is still expensive affairs, India has plenty of people finding loopholes to get a fast track and cheaper methods to procure these bikes. These people are known to bring in their superbikes in the country by forging a few documents and making it illegal. This method also helps them reduce their tax liability from the customs. The customs office is known to scrutinize these purchases and take strict actions against defaulters. In most cases, the illegal vehicles are seized and due to the heavy fines levied on them, the bikes stay seized under customs. Let’s look at one such example of a rare Ducati 1098 S Tricolour, seized in Kochi customs as reported by T-BHP.
This is one of the rarest superbikes with only 1013 units manufactured. This rare Ducati was launched in 2007 and since it is of Italian descent it was themed on the colours of the Italian national flag. The Ducati 1098 gained huge popularity because of it looks an also because it was built around a tubular steel trellis frame. Ducati’s Tricolour limited editions have been a part of Ducati’s line up since they launched the first 750 F1 in 1985.
Ducati 1098 was launched as a track bike which came with Termignoni race exhaust kit and even the ECU was tuned to match the system. The frame of the wheels of the Tricolour was done up with racing gold colours. It was powered with a 1099cc, L-Twin engine that generates a maximum power of 160 Bhp at 9750 RPM and 123 Nm at 8000 RPM. It also comes with a standard 6-speed transmission. The USP of the bike, when it was launched back in 2007 was the fact that it offered the highest torque-to-weight ratio, which made it extremely desirable for bike lovers and they would dream of riding it on the race tracks.
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The differentiator when it comes to the overall look of the bike is the single-sided swingarm. For the suspension, it is fitted with a 43mm Ohlins fork an Ohlins 46PRC monoshock and the suspension is fully adjustable.
The Tricolour was based on the S variant, which meant it belonged to the lightweight performance segment. It was fitted with all sort of lightweight components such as the brakes, tyres and even the alloy wheels. In fact, the alloy wheels fitted on this bike is 1.9 kilos lighter than the original one. It also came with a carbon fibre fender on the front side.
Since this bike was made mostly for riding it on the tracks, it came with a standard Ducati Data Analyzer. It would help the rider to retrieve data about his past track rides and compare it to each other to check for the performance.
Even though we’re not sure when this bike was found in the open parking last, but it seems to have rusted away and damaged significantly. We really hope the owner makes necessary arrangements to retrieve this limited edition bike to its actual form. It is also quite possible that the expensive parts from the bike are stolen if it’s kept without surveillance.
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The post Limited-edition, 35 lakh rupee Ducati 1098 S Tricolore superbike ABANDONED in India first appeared on Cartoq.