On the move: Ducati Apollo

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On the move: Ducati Apollo
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CLASSIC on the move

Ducati Apollo

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In the early 1960s, Ducati created a mighty street motorcycle with a V4 engine. His name "Apollo" referred to the Americans’ excursions into space.


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With this mighty V4 cruiser Ducati wanted to attack Harley-Davidson in the USA.

For almost 40 years, experts have been puzzling: How does a Ducati Apollo drive? Only two prototypes were ever built. Tire problems stopped the project at the time, and to date no journalist has been able to test Ducati’s dinosaur. But when Hiroaki Iwashita, the owner of the only surviving specimen, made it available to the Ducati factory museum, the fossil came back within reach. Former Ducati racing mechanic Giuliano Pedretti and his colleagues made the mighty four-cylinder ready to drive, after which the puzzle was finally solved.

Domi Racer Inc., America’s largest specialist for classic car parts, had once taken over one of the two Apollos ever built from the stock of the Berlin company when it closed its doors. A few years later Iwashita bought the one-off from Domi Racer Inc. for 17,000 dollars and deposited it in his private collection. It was not until 1995 that he presented the rare piece to the public at a classic car exhibition in Tokyo and drew attention to a piece of motorcycle history that was believed to be lost. When Ducati built the museum in 1996, Iwashita made the Apollo available to the plant on permanent loan. In return, Ducati returned the motorcycle, which of course plays a prominent role in the exhibition, to its original drivable condition.

But until then, the Apollo had never appeared in public. At the Festival of Speed ​​in Goodwood she was to drive for the first time, in front of 120,000 spectators. I had the honor of being invited to the first roll-out in Bologna in advance. Of course I was happy to come – especially since the Ducati was on new tires that wouldn’t blow my mind like test driver Librenti back then.

In fact, the Whitewall Goodyears are the same today as they were 40 years ago. At least they are freshly assembled and suitable for a well-groomed ride, where the needle of the Jaeger speedometer should not exceed the 70 mph mark. If you swing your leg loosely over the expansive, 760 mm high seat, the Apollo feels amazingly stretched and slim. It doesn’t appear nearly as bulky to the driver as it does to the beholder and hardly appears wider than a toothed belt-driven Desmo V2. The high handlebars pulled far back correspond to the US style of the 60s, although some later Harleys wore even wider specimens. The ergonomically conveniently placed footrests – not nearly as far forward as on modern cruisers – provide astonishing seating comfort. The motto is relaxed cruising.

It’s high time to turn the ignition key in the lamp pot and start the engine with the Fiat starter. Four Dell’Orto racing carburettors identify our Apollo as the first and most powerful version, they make the choke superfluous. On a warm, Italian June day, the V4 starts up spontaneously and quickly falls into a slightly increased idle speed of an estimated 1500 rpm, a rev counter is missing. Its timbre is more like that of an American V8 than the four-cylinder of an Italian small car. The unique exhaust sound is very different from any Honda V4 – and quite loud on top of that. The two slim Silentium silencers only have an extremely modest interior

More driving impressions


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The Apollo’s lean angle is limited, and the tires quickly reached their limit.

The result is a timbre that is just as independent as that of the later Desmodromic V2, but livelier, more high-frequency, even at low speeds.
The right foot pushes first gear into position on the long gear pedal; the gears 2 to 5 are below in the shift pattern. The Apollo starts moving impressively smoothly, although the play of the clutch cable is too small and the clutch slips. After this has been corrected, the Apollo allows a speedy traffic light start without undue strain. When upshifting from long-geared first to second gear, the Apollo draws attention to the age and characteristics of the drive train. Even without idling bypass in the higher gears, the drive demands smooth shifting. Whoever shifts hastily is sure to always put in an intermediate idle. Disengage, count to 3, then calmly shift into the next gear and everything will be fine, mostly.

When the next aisle is seated, the Apollo pushes forward quickly. In the middle gears in particular, the V4 reacts spontaneously to the smooth throttle grip. The fifth gear is designed as overdrive and was therefore predestined for the American freeways, which began to proliferate everywhere in the mid-1960s as part of the Interstate Freeway Expansion Program. The opulent 1256 cm³ engine offers so much acceleration in the middle speed range that the Apollo sprints quickly from the lower four gears to the last and glides on the wave of the lush torque that is available almost over the entire speed range. Unfortunately there is no torque information; however, if the Apollo ever saw a test bench, the curves would surely put most of the current V2 engines to shame.

The V4 produces its performance, which is still impressive today, with a kind of ease that one would hardly attribute to the 1960s. Compared with British twins before the Norton Isolastic era and with every Harley of this era, the Apollo looks like a sewing machine next to a cement mixer in terms of vibration behavior. At most, a boxer BMW from this period offers comparable smoothness and driving comfort over the entire speed range. Out of respect for its uniqueness, I didn’t turn the V4 to the limit, but in the upper area it leaves the same calming, unexcited feeling that was characteristic of every Ducati V2 a decade later. When there were no four-cylinder cylinders on the market, not even the 1966 MV Agusta’s 600, the Apollo would have set the standard in terms of performance and ride comfort and would have been the benchmark for the Japanese a decade later. The engine was way ahead of its time.

The driving behavior, on the other hand, was at best up to date – owed to the specifications of the US Police Department: They stipulated 16-inch tires for a motorcycle that screamed for 18-inch sports soles. The car tires hopelessly restricted the potential of the driving characteristics. They were completely unsuitable for an incline of more than 15 degrees, and although you can then easily touch down with the footrests, you can feel the active life of the tires. The long wheelbase in tight curves is certainly partly responsible for the feeling of moving a truck, as test driver Franco Farne once put it. In return, the chassis offers good stability in fast arcs, in which the Ceriani spring elements comfortably direct the heavyweight over uneven ground. The softly padded seat filters out the last bumps.

In addition to the clumsiness and the completely unsuitable tires, the brakes give cause for complaint. The simplex brakes with a diameter of 220 mm in the front and rear wheels still decelerate reasonably adequately at low speeds, but after a few hard braking they show strong fading. The handbrake lever moves to the handlebars and the brake pedal falls through. They may have been average in their time, but given the performance of the V4 engine, like the tires, they deserve a lot more attention.

The Italian Apollo project ultimately failed, and the tire industry is responsible for this two-wheeler tragedy. She was unable to develop products that could handle the performance of such a heavy motorcycle. This delayed the thrill and thrill of moving four-cylinder sports motorcycles for years. When Joe Berliner commissioned the Apollo in 1961, he did it under the wrong circumstances: if he had focused less on the restrictions and wishes of the US police, but more on the development of high-performance tires and the needs of motorcyclists, they would not have as long have to wait for four-cylinder sports motorcycles like the Honda CB 750 and Kawasaki Z1. After the ride I am convinced: The Apollo is one of the great missed opportunities in motorcycle history – what a shame, what a shame!

Technical specifications


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Ducati Apollo

Engine: Air-cooled four-cylinder four-stroke 90 degree V engine, a central camshaft, two valves per cylinder, bumpers, rocker arms; Bore 84.5 mm, stroke 56 mm, displacement 1256 cm³, compression 10: 1, power 100 HP at 7000 rpm, mixture preparation: 4 round slide carburetors, Dell’Orto SSI, 32 mm

Electrical system: E-starter and kick starter, battery / coil ignition, contact-controlled,
Alternator: alternating current, 12 V / 200 W.

Power transmission: Multi-disc oil bath clutch, claw-shift five-speed gearbox, primary drive: gear wheels, secondary drive: duplex chain

Landing gear: Backbone frame made of tubular steel, load-bearing motor, front Ceriani telescopic fork, Ø 38 mm
rear Ceriani two-arm swing arm with two spring struts, wire-spoke wheels, front tires 5.00 x 16, rear tires 5.00 x 16, front simplex drum, Ø 220 mm, rear simplex drum,
Ø 220 mm

Measurements and weight: Wheelbase 1555 mm, seat height 760 mm, weight 272 kg

Driving performance: Top speed 200 km / h

Manufacturer: Ducati S.p.A., Bologna, Italy

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