I recently sold my Monster 1200r and wasn’t sure what I wanted to replace it with. I didn’t really want anything new, and I didn’t want another naked bike. I really fancied going for a childhood dream bike, so I set out looking at the 748/996/998 series of bikes. I found a few that I liked but for one reason or another they weren’t tempting enough for me to buy. I sort of settled on keeping the money and see if I could cope with only 3 bikes in the garage!! That was until I set eyes upon the 999s. Now I loved the 916, 996 and 998 and when the 999 came out I was physically sick. I thought it was a disaster, horrendous looking and how fecking dare they (Ducati) remove the single sided swingarm? Come on Ducati, what the hell were you playing at? But Ducati must have known what they were doing because the 999 has slowly grown on me and now I think it’s an absolutely stunningly beautiful bike. So much so that I bought one! As fate would have it my 999s came up for sale on the day the Monster was collected. I couldn’t believe my luck, a nearly new 16 year old 999s. I was in dream land!! I instantly contacted the dealer to gather more intel on it, talked to some very helpful forum members about it and before you knew it the deal was done. I was one very happy teenager, wait….. hang on a minute, middle aged gentleman! The 999s was bought by a private Swiss collector from the original Italian owner, it then spent the next 15 years in his private collection. A salesman form Ducati Chelmsford bought it for his collection but after a year of ownership he decided to put it up for sale. She only had 1284 miles on her and 1280 of that was covered in 2005! She has a Termignoni slip on pipe and BST carbon wheels with a carbon clutch cover. I must say that I’m smitten with my latest purchase.
Nice find! I think you are right about the looks, especially the later red frame jobbies. Get that steed out on track at Ducati Day next year. It deserves it after such a sheltered life.