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This 1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport Is A Like a Piece of Speedy Jewelry You Can Ride

Aside from being simply beautiful as a piece of design, the Ducati 900 Super Sport also has some famous track pedigree. When Mike “The Bike” Hailwood found himself bored in retirement and hard-up for cash, he was enticed to return to motorcycle racing via a cash-rich opportunity to return to the pinnacle at the Isle of Man TT.
1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport 12 photos
Photo: Speedart Motorsports
1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport1979 Ducati 900 Super Sport
In case you were wondering, his return justified that deal as he’d already won the race a record 12 times. Those victories included a hat-trick in 1961 when the event still retained Grand Prix status. While some among the motorcycle racing cognoscenti expressed skepticism (it had been after all 11 years since Hailwood rode a bike in anger), most fans were thrilled at the prospect of seeing him compete once again.

But they need not have feared as, mounted on a Ducati, Hailwood found the old touch and won the Formula 1 race, and not by a little, but by nearly two minutes. That 1978 win resulted in paroxysms of joy among fans around the island and became a historical touchpoint.

The Ducati Super Sport and SS are a series of air-cooled, four-stroke desmodromic 2-valve 90° V-twin bits of art and utility built by Ducati, and a limited edition Super Sport called the SuperLight was offered in 1992. The 1978 model of the 900 Super Sport bike is considered by many to represent the finest variant of the bevel drive, square case Super Sports, and the 1978 900 and 1979 750s were very like the ‘Imola’ race machines and the final models to sport spoke wheels.

For the 1979 model year, the Super Sports were painted black with gold accents, and Campagnolo wheels replaced the Borrani alloy rims of the Hailwood bike.

This 1979 example being offered by Speedart Motorsports, LLC, is one of last of Big Bevel Twins, and it is fully restored and, as such, highly collectible. With 18,010 miles on the clock, this 864cc L-twin, four-stroke SOHC bevel gear driven beauty features a 5-speed gearbox, generates 72 bhp @ 7,500 rpm, puts out 50 lb-ft of torque and is said to be capable of reaching a top speed of above 135 mph.

If you find you must have it, the price is an unsurprising $50,000 USD.

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