Thinking out loud..... Since I now have 2 real first-hand accounts from original buyers directly to me personally (and for bikes I've owned so confirmed via documentation) each representing a different method of ordering; one online the morning of 12 Sept, and the other via a main dealership the day Ducati allowed ordering post 12 Sep (1 Jan 2001) - that puts to bed a couple of myths...... First that "they all sold out" via online ordering or even the fact that just all serialized bikes sold out online. Here are the facts as of now: 1) Morning of 12 Sept 2000, online ordering is available for a few short hours. 2K deposit, buyer nominates dealer to complete the transaction upon delivery. 2) The number of orders Ducati took on 12 Sept is 373-375 units (confirmed by Ducati in writing) 3) We know 500 serialized bikes ended up being made and either 198 or 200 non-serialized "off-road use" bikes made. 4) The buyer who I know ordered online 12 Sept received serialized #31 and the buyer I know who ordered at a dealership 1 Jan received serialized #81. 5) We know the bikes were built in batches; a batch of street bikes or two here, a batch of track bikes there, and this cycle repeats throughout the first half of 2001 with deliveries to dealerships starting ~3rd week of May 2001. Here are the current unknowns that hopefully someone here has first-hand knowledge of and can help us out: 1) How and when buyers were given a choice between a road version vs a track version. 2) What countries were even allowed online ordering? I'm going to ask the owner I know who did his online if he had the choice of a road bike or a track bike. I will ask the same of the owner I know who did the order at a dealership the same thing, did he have a choice. - Oddly enough both these bikes were UK and went thru Brett at Pro Twins. I *think*, pure speculation on my part, that only road bikes were offered for sale to the general public until the 500 had been sold. Throughout this time a race team or independent could get a track version anytime via Ducati directly - the most serious and top-tier teams, (factory backed directly got F01 bikes) bought the 996RS. Once the 500 road bikes had been sold out, they had tons of track versions left so they sent those out to dealerships all over the world to sell. - BUT even my own speculation couldn't be true just based on the order circumstance and serial # bike delivered to the 2 owners I referred to (like a guy getting #81 who ordered in Jan when 375 bikes pre-sold online?)..... UNLESS.... certain serial # ranges were reserved for certain markets! Hmm... I know some bikes in the single digits and teens are in AUS, some bikes twenty-something into the 80s are in the UK, etc. etc. Seems like a wild guess that's probably wrong tho. Open to thoughts..... Ian Falloons's book shows this for 996R production numbers: 996 R 2001 Testastretta Red Internet - 191 (included in this batch were 56 UK Strada versions assembled on Jan 29th, 2001) 996 R 2001 Testastretta Red - 120 996 R USA 2001 Testastretta Red - 60 (un-numbers Corsa versions) 996 R Aus 2001 Testastretta Red - 40 996 R Jpn 2001 Testastretta Red Internet - 113 996 R Jpn 2001 Testastretta Red - 50 996 R 2001 Testastretta Red Internet - 56 996 R 2001 Testastretta Red - 30 996 R France 2001 Testastretta Red Internet - 13 996 R France 2001 Testastretta Red - 25 Total: 698 world wide Here are screenshots I got of the Ducati website for 30 Sept 2000, after online ordering. Sadly these are the only copies I could find of the site on the internet archive (way back machine) which had the 996R. I REALLY wish someone had a screenshot of the ordering page for 12 Sept...
Oh, and there was apparently a recall for the clutch slave cylinder on the 996R. The recall stated it could "make the clutch slip prematurely" and replacement slave cylinders were issued to owners in the UK about 6 months after the first deliveries. So if the first deliveries were in the June/July/Aug time frame, then the recall was Dec/Jan thereafter. I've also been able to confirm that the original battery was in fact a FIAMM FT12-12B EcoForce, not a Yuasa brand (at least for UK market bikes).
Another piece of info, this one to run past you UK residents for its validity.... I've read that doing a PDI on a new bike is a legal requisite. I presume that would apply for a dealer to register it? Or would it apply even if the dealer let it out the door brand new and the dealer didn't register it? The reason I ask is... I was told a story by an original buyer/owner that when his 996R was delivered to the dealership, he absolutely insisted on taking it home as-is, no assembly, no PDI, no registration. He said the dealer gave him a hard time and was insisting on registering it, but finally relented and allowed him to take the bike home as it was delivered from Italy. Now I know the latter must be true because I have pictures of the bike with all of the factory paper labels on the headlights and not assembled (front turn signals not fastened, windscreen not installed, mirrors not installed, alloy cans still in place, etc.). The odo shows 2 miles and I'm told that's from calibration at the speedo factory. The tyres indeed have all nubs in place (coloured ID stripes too!) and appear to have never seen a road surface. So this is at least a case when a PDI was not done. I know that many still "new" bikes are out there (along with many fakes!). I've seen several 916/996/998 examples that are still new, but generally, they have been assembled. Some even serviced and the engine ran - still with between 2 and 7 miles on the odo. In countries where these were delivered to dealers in wooden crates (non-UK market), only one I've seen still in the crate (996R). Thus of course in this case it was unassembled with labels still in place on the nose fairing. So is the bit about bikes in the UK having a PDI as a legal requisite true? How common was it that dealers wouldn't care and just let customers take the bikes unassembled, not registered? - Keep in mind I'm asking specific to serialized road legal 996Rs, not the non-serialized ones as I know many of those were never registered. Thanks!
You'd have thought the contract between the buyer, dealer and the factory would not be completed without the registration inplace with the DVLA.
That and I wonder how the taxes for the purchase were handled... simply collected by the dealership with the remaining balance? Were there any associated taxes with the registration of a new vehicle that the DVLA would have wanted? I do know this original buyer did register the vehicle for the first time exactly 1 year after he brought it home. I've seen the registration and run a number plate vehicle history report and they check out.
We'd all love to see a real photograph of the above motorcycle just for hell of it, but for me there's no substitute for riding these beautiful iconic motorcycles on the road, the sounds, vibes rushing down your favourite tarmacadam is a dream ticket for any human body that has a pulse .
Hello. I don't know if a new vehicle PDI inspection is a "legal requisite" currently in UK, but others on here may have more authoritative information. However, I doubt that it was back in 2001, because in year 2000 I part exchanged my Ducati 996 for an MV Agusta F4, which I did not wish to register at the time. The transaction was completed, and the motorcycle and paperwork was provided for the unregistered bike, which was subsequently registered for the road in March 2001. Normally the PDI confirms that the vehicle is safe and ready for road use, with the activity recorded in its service record. While I realise that this account is anecdotal, I hope it helps somewhat. Tom.
It does help, I appreciate you relating your experience. From the searching I have done, I can't find anything saying it's a legal requirement for a PDI to have been done for registration to occur. But then again the examples I've seen where a PDI didn't happen, the bike wasn't registered when sold by the dealership. Your case in point and the example I posted about. As you say, back in 2001 it seems even less likely to have been in place. While dealer prep, assembly, and PDI were the standard for what dealers did on all new bikes as a rule, there doesn't seem to have been any legal issues with not doing that. And of course if the dealer didn't register it, even less so.
I've just had a look at the DVLA forms for registering a new vehicle in UK, they are available through the .gov website and are: a V55/4 - Application for Tax and registration of a new vehicle; the Certificate of Conformity; and, possibly a V267 - Declaration of Newness, which requires that the vehicle only has "reasonable delivery mileage", has not been previously registered, has not been sold by retail, and is a current model or was up to 2 years ago. I searched for reference to a PDI, but did not find one, so absence may not prevent registration? However, since it is a feature present in the service record, it may be a consideration if a warranty claim was necessary. Although, if the bike is "unused", I don't know when the warranty period would start, possibly at the point of retail sale of the unregistered bike? Again, hope it helps. Tom.
I've been told that right from the get-go, even when the pre-orders took place online, buyers were able to choose from a Strada or Corsa variant. Production-wise, while there were not blocks of serial numbers used for each market, nor were they numbered by when they were ordered, some markets had their bikes built before others and many of the non-serialized Corsa variants were towards the end of production. Here is an example from 2 bikes, both UK market: #31 - Online order, 12 Sep 2000 - VIN *668 - engine # *138 #81 - Dealer order, 01 Jan, 2001 - VIN *676 - engine # *145 Both were built on 29 Jan 2001 as part of the 56 UK market batch - which is as low as #09 and as high as #381. For more context, here are the numbers of other low serial # bikes and their market: #03 - AUS #09 - UK #10 - IT #27 - UK #33 - GER #45 - UK #52 - UK #53 - EU (exact country unknown) JP market bikes start around #105 with many in the 3xx and 4xx range right up to #496 (VIN *634). The highest # UK bike I've found is #381. Aside from that, all markets seem to be mixed throughout. Note how the VIN of #496 is well before #31. So how they batched production, I have no idea. Also, it seems most were delivered in late May thru June, July, and Aug all over the world. 2 or 3 of the press bikes at Valencia had their engines pop (were these all 0000 bikes?), and while I can't confirm what recall work was done by dealerships prior to delivery, I've been told there was some. Then we also have recalls post delivery, like the clutch slave cylinders. I still haven't figured out the exact rhyme or reason for the production, these are just some facts and observations. We also know that Ducati can verify what engine # went into what VIN # frame, but they do not know what bikes got what serial #, and I'm curious if they even know Strada from Corsa.
You seem to have a very rational anglo-saxon (almost Germanic) approach to all this… If I may, you should try and factor in the « latin laid back » attitude to all this, of which the Italians are the CEOs. The founders. The Masters. Try an imagine that, at the time of production of the 996R, nobody in Borgo Panigale gave a rat’s ass about what number engine went on what frame for which country. Nobody. The whole « Trainspotting » thing is utterly alien to the Mediterranean cultures. They prefer spending time drinking wine and enjoying good food in the sunny weather with their families instead.
Haha, so true. Once I have it on display in my living room, I plan on spending much time enjoying alcoholic beverages and looking at her lustfully After all, this is simply academic and for fun
Do we know what the new RRP of the 996 range was back in 2000 / 2001 in the UK? I’ve been trying to find out online but for the life of me I can’t get to the bottom of it!
Speaking only for the 996R, it had a common worldwide price of 26,000 Euros at the time of online sales 12 Sep 2000. Not sure if the price increased over the model year or not, or began to vary by market due to currency fluctuations. I think what you are looking for I have somewhere in my 2001 UK model lineup brochure. I'll need to dig it up.
I found it, and I thought the RRP was listed for all models alongside the detailed specs but I was wrong. Just my memory playing tricks on me. I do recall coming across an image online of a UK price list that looked to be in some sort of brochure format. I'll do some searching and see what I come up with.
