Written by Martin Hodgson
On the salesroom floor of a motorcycle dealership, no sector of the market sees technology evolve as quickly as in the Sportsbike sector. The constant need of race teams for homologated bikes to have the latest and greatest sees an update almost every year. This, in turn, leads to serious depreciation in the class and, before you know it, even modern Ducati’s make financial sense for a makeover. But Austria’s NCT Motorcycles has done more than just that, putting their full custom stamp on a Ducati 848 Evo to really ramp up the racer element in this cafe machine.

Situated in the Eastern Alps, come summertime, the roads around the NCT workshop transform into the perfect place for a road bike. So it comes as no surprise that every custom David Widmann and his team build, no matter how crazy the visuals, is a true rider at heart. Having previously worked their magic on a ’90s Ducati 750SS, the 848 was the opportunity to step another decade ahead in the companies evolution while still applying their signature touch.
The 848 may have only seen limited success in racing, but outside of the engine the bike shares a huge range of parts with the dominant 1098 WSBK winning machine. This becomes evident as you strip it down and the crew at NCT wanted the bike back to a bare frame before they began their build. The first challenge they saw was the size of the subframe and an entirely new item was fabricated to suit the cafe look they were g...