This is the first glimpse of the new Ducati SuperSport 939 in action. It’s also the first time it’s been seen since the leaked images from last month’s World Ducati Week, where the bike was previewed in a secure area.
At WDW Ducati attempted to only show the bike to Ducati fans inside a secure area, but someone sneaked a camera into the event and leaked low-quality pictures online.Since then, the bike hasn’t been seen again, but now we have spotted two different test bikes undergoing development at a private test track in Italy, months ahead of the bike’s official launch, which is expected to take place at the Milan show in November.
Ducati have officially confirmed there will be two models; a standard model and a higher-specification S model. These spy shots appear to show two different versions of the standard model, which Ducati say will arrive in dealers at around £10,000 when it goes on sale next year. The S model will be a fair bit more expensive, but while Ducati have, so far, not given a firm indication of its expected cost, we estimate it will be between £12,000 and £12,500.
Ducati say the new SuperSport 939 is a sporty bike for the road which offers good handling, performance and brakes but doesn’t have the super high-end performance of the existing Panigale superbike range, which comprises a family of 1299 variants, and the 959.
The bike is based around some clever use of existing Ducati mechanical elements. The engine is based on the 939cc water-cooled L-twin from the Hypermotard, the trellis chassis is based around that used on the Monster with the same raft of electronic rider aids seen on other Ducati models.
Electronics will include mandatory ABS to meet Euro4 regulations, as well as eight-level traction control, and three rider modes. What’s more, Ducati are now introducing cornering ABS and anti-wheelie across more and more models as the technology becomes more ubiquitous, and cheaper, and we would expect these to be available for the SuperSport too.