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My 888 To 851/996 S4r Project Story By Murph

Discussion in '851 / 888' started by Murph, Apr 30, 2020.

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    This was my '93 triple 8 that I had been lusting after for nearly 15 years, ever since I saw my first 851, and then while on a year long motorcycle trip around the US and B.C. in Canada 10 years ago I was parked at a cafe and heard it first, then saw it, saw those three big number 8's on the side of the fairing, so f**king cool looking, and I wanted one.
    The year long trip actually turned into a 5 year RTW, but that's another story.
    I have a friend, Johan Keyser of Moto Motivo in South Carolina who one day called me up and said he has one, a minty 9k mile one that a customer left in for service. Ask him if he wants to sell it I asked. $10,500 I heard back from him the following day. It was cherry, 100% stock, 100% original, nothing aftermarket on it at all. Originally I wanted a '92 white frame, but the scarcity of 888's here in the US made me settle for the '93.
    That motor and clutch sound, like a tin can full of spanners being shaken around all the time. Wicked.
    Soon enough I had chalked up two or three more thousand miles on it, actually getting ready to fab up a suction cup type rear bag frame to go over the fragile tail piece to hold a top and side bag to do some longer trips on it.
    I was living in San Francisco at the time last year and had a friend whose husband John, a few months earlier in May, died in a one vehicle accident, only 54, while out riding his Duc. Experienced rider was John, so still to this day the circumstances of the accident are vague.
    So I decided to ride the 888 over one day to her house in Oakland (the nice part, but still Oakland) chit chat, commiserate, make sure she was hanging in ok and help her sell some of his leathers and gear. He had 5 Ducs, and one of them I ended up buying from her, a'97 Monster which I was never a fan of but what a great city commuter bike it turned out to be.
    Anyway, we're sitting out back, having coffee, watching her dog eat one of her other dogs dried up turd pellets (note to self, not gonna let her lick my face today) when I hear the sound of a Duc out front. "Your neighbors have Ducati's" says I? No came the reply. Well, I hot footed it out front and sure as shit, an empty space where I parked my bike was all I saw. I was in a state. Fucking freaking out, jumped in her car, drove around the neighborhood and some folks said it went that way, the way to the freeway. Boom, gone, if it was headed to the freeway it'll be in Mexico in no time. Took me a while to get over that, I still had my 91 and 92 900's to ride, and the Hailwood. But nothing replace the feeling of my 888.
    So after the insurance money came in Scott Wilson of italian Iron Classics in Tuscon said he has an 851 that he ran across if Im interested. White frame, check, red, check, good price, check.

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    Scott Wilson 851 Tricolore.

    Now, Scott's no slouch, he's done 5 851 to 996 builds so far, as well as a bunch of TT1 and TT2 track bikes and had I not had my 888 already would have bought his 851/996 Tricolore instead. Just a wicked looking bike and so well done what with the 2 into 1 pipe, Marchy wheelset, and NCR motor.
    So I decided to go for the S4R conversion and sourced a bunch of CF parts to do it the way I always wanted the 888 to look, but never got the chance to because some fucknut stoled it from me. Sorry, little residual bitterness still at the bottom of the tank.
    It's finally done, has been for a month now, but I'm in LA and he's in Tuscon AZ so I'm only getting around to picking it up next week. I haven't even ridden it yet.


    All the rest of the relevant info and build details are here in this article:
    https://www.italianiron.com/blogs/news/ducati-851-superbike-current-customer-project

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    It now looks like this but I also have the 851 tail for it and a spare set of fairings to turn it into an 851 SP4 lookalike as I always loved that livery with the big white number 1 panels on the side fairing. And yes, those are vintage Cibie + lamps on the front in an homage to the Bol d'Or style, and prefer them to the stock square headlight. Has CF everywhere, intakes, breather box, rearsets (not pictured).
    Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed the story of my love affair with the beautiful Ducati 851 and 888.

    Murph
     
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  2. Hey Murph
    Are you the Murph that I met about 100 km east of Vernon BC in 2010 while on your epic moto trip, and you took this picture after having a go on my 996?
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  3. Holy thread resurrection :upyeah:
     
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    • Funny Funny x 1
  4. Am I glad it is I missed this one and enjoyed the story
    @Murph
     
  5. This would be great wouldn't it? @Murph not seen for 22 weeks..
     
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  6. He might murph again to the forum :D
     
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  7. Link didn't go to the page I wanted, gonna try again
     
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  8. you've probably done all this and more, but the Murph on here is named Rob and born 1964 (in D.F. profile) if that helps.

    https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/greetings-from-a-california-tosser.77354/
     
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