1299 1299 Or 959 Corse

959 Corse, it will hold a better resale than a 1299 I would have thought.

 

I have a 1299, but have had the use of a brand new 959 Corse for the last few days as a courtesy bike ( thanks Riders).

IMHO - the Corse is a more sensible version of the bigger bike. It's refined, light and the power is not too scary, it's a fantastic bike. I'd love one as a track bike. It's possible the most complete roadbike bike I've ever ridden.

The 1299 is more brutal, angrier and needs you to hang on a bit more. Harder to ride well I think.

For me it comes down to the fact the 1299 is more exciting. The 959 a little too refined. After the 1299, I find myself getting bored with the smaller bike. Having the power (not necessary using it) is nice.

Just buy the one you like the most, it's only money after all.

 

I had a 959, traded for a 1299S, and then ordered the 959 Corse, which I then cancelled and changed to buying and upgrading a base 959.... a few thoughts:

Power: the 959 has enough to go very fast on road or a track. However, the 1299 is both more relaxing (just leave it in 3rd) and grin inducing (give it beans and try to keep the front wheel on the ground! It depends what you want to do with it. I would go 1299S for Road, and 959 (Not corse) for track with some personal tweeks.

Looks: single sided swingarm is lovely. You can fit it to the 959 if you want, however the double sided feels better to me and is supposed to be lighter. I’m happy with the double sided, but some people don’t believe it is a proper ducati. That is up to you! The exhaust can be fixed with a 1299 one for less than £500 (I’ve bought the parts 3 times now).

1299S: is a brilliant bike in how it looks and makes you feel, and the attention it gets. It has all the bells and whistles, and is a pleasure to ride. However, you’re unlikely to have much of a warranty and I don’t know many 1299’s that don’t need something sorting. In my case it was a £10k engine rebuild when I was without a bike for 4 months over the summer. Even if DUK agree to supply parts through goodwill, you will have a £2-3k rebuild cost to settle. Personally I wouldn’t take that chance.

959 Corse: personal reasons here, however mine wasn’t going to keep the fairings, so they were pointless. I picked up a ttx shock, had that serviced and an öhlins fork kit fitted for less than £2k. I picked up a brand new 959 with a 4 year warranty for £11,995. That gave me a bike set up for me as I wanted for £2.5k less than the list price of the corse. Some people mention resale, but it isn’t as if any of the small Panigales are loosing a lot in value at the minute, so personally I’d see you loosing more on the course if selling in 2-3 years than if you have a base model.

In conclusion, 1299S if you want a pose and a big grin, and a 959 if you enjoy beating bigger bikes on track and cornering harder. I wouldn’t bother with the corse personally because I don’t think it is special enough for the extra cost.

 

959 is a bloody cracking bike. Can only imagine the 1299 being a fat pig with plenty of grunt

 

Its lighter. Just saying

 

Depends who's on it

 

Barely. I think 15kg compared to the “S” not the base model? And you can save 10kg on the 959 by switching the the 1299 exhaust.

 

959 is 200kg which is just bloody heavy. What's a few kg here or there unless it's BSB etc

 

Quick Google 1299 is 190.5kg and its wheel base is 6mm longer than the 1299 if your interested.

I might get a 1299 now

 

Seems the fat pig would be the 959 (which is what I was quoting)
Ducati 959 Panigale Ducati 1299 Panigale
Wheelbase 1431mm 1437mm
Seat height 830mm 830mm
Fuel tank 17 litres 17 litres
Weight (wet) 200kg 190.5kg

 

Just checked my old thread: https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/euro-4-exhaust-swap.43125/page-4#post-793547
.....the whole 959 system was 10KG. The saving by switching to the 1299 and dumping the servo and rear pegs is 5.3kg..... so 5kg in it. Change the wheels and you’ll be at the 1299 weight. Strangely though, due to the power and the tyre profiles I find the 959 feels lighter in a bend than the 1299 did (although the 1299 initially turns a bit easier due to the lighter wheels).

 

That seems the consistent view of most road tests: somehow the 899/959 feels lighter and more agile even tho its a tad heavier. Weight in the right place lol

 

Thats interesting thoughts, what about taking into account the weight lost by removing the 1299 standard cat'd exhaust, is that already being considered? These were the things that have always put me off the smaller Panigale. A smaller capacity race bike should be as light as possible. That said I did take a 959 out on the road and really enjoyed it. I'm crashing too much on the R6 due to being a bit lanky for it's tiny dimensions and making mistakes and a Panigale fits me perfectly so it kind of makes some sense.....

 

That saving is with the standard exhaust, so lose more (on both) by switching to a lighter exhaust.

My 959 is going through a lightening regime over the winter (proper race fairings, drop the fan/lights/air injection/carbon canister etc, although I’ll be leaving the standard exhaust on). I’ll try to get a proper weight of it when complete.

 

Biggest weight saving between the 1299 and 959 is the wheels followed by the exhaust

I changed the battery and saved 2kg

Changed the exhaust and ditched the pillion pegs and saved 8kg or something

Changed the wheels and saved something like 4kg. The 899/959 rear wheel is stupidly heavy (I think it was an intentional Audi tactic to make lesser models worse than the more expensive ones)

The only difference after that is the subframe is cast alloy in the 1299 whereas is steel tubing on the 959 and the clock bracket and engine casings are different but fought they weigh much different

 

@flatstick959 , change the rear subframe bud as the standard one weighs a ton, I changed mine to a 1199 one as they are well light ,but mine was a road bike so you may want to look at a Ali race subframe .

 

Does the 899/959 tank fit the 1199/1299 subframe? That what put me off when I was thinking about doing it a while ago

I quite like the steel subframe as it was handy when I used the abba front lift I used the subframe to pull the bike down - I wouldn’t have fancied doing it with a cast alloy one!

 

You wouldn’t have saved that much just changing the can - it’s the cat under the bike that weighs a ton

The pillion pegs were about 700g, the flapper valve servo about 600g

I had a titanium Akra shotgun for a time and it was only a kilo lighter than OEM one