It?s smiles all round at Ducati at the moment, as it?s just come out that 2021 was their best year ever, as far as motorcycle sales go. Worldwide, they sold 59,447 motorcycles. And that?s in the same year they won the MotoGP Constructors title. Double whammy. But does this mean anything for the motorcycling industry as a whole" And what conclusions can we draw from Ducati having their best year ever in 2021"

First of all, let?s see what Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali had to say about it,

“2021 was a magical year for Ducati. We delivered over 59,000 motorcycles, a number never achieved before in 95 years of the company’s history. We also won the title of MotoGP Constructors’ World Champion for the second consecutive year, and we started the electric era of our company with the V21L prototype, which foresees the bike that will race in the MotoE championship from 2023.?
Nice one. Apart from the fact that the only people in the world who actually care who won the Constructors Championship are the people that actually won it. But that?s besides the point. They can be proud of selling that many bikes though.

As it happens, 9,957 of those bikes were the new Ducati Multistrada V4. I thought they?d sell well, after having ridden one about a year ago, but the fact that they made up almost 17% of Ducati sales, in their best year ever, says a lot about the direction motorcycling is going, globally.

Lumbago

We already had a good ide...