Ducati 860 GT History: The Ducati Nobody Wanted

In November 1973, Ducati wheeled two motorcycles onto its stand at the Milan show. One was the 750 SS, the desmo race replica built on the back of Paul Smart's win at Imola. The other was the 860 GT, and it looked like it had been folded out of cardboard.

The 860 was the one Ducati was counting on. It was meant to be the volume bike, the one that paid for everything else. It sold badly enough to help end a management career, and Ducati killed the styling inside eighteen months. Fewer than 3,000 of the original GT and GTE were built.

I owned one. A green 1975 860 GT, and it is the only motorcycle I have ever regretted selling.

A state-owned company with a sales problem

Ducati spent 1967 to 1978 under Italian government control, and by the early 1970s the racing reputation was not paying the bills. The 750 GT and 750 Sport were respected and slow-selling. General manager Cristiano de Eccher wanted a big twin with broader appeal, and he wanted it in numbers: his target was 15,000 units a year across the range.

So Ducati did something no motorcycle company had done. It hired a car stylist.

Giorgetto Giugiaro's ItalDesign studio had turned out the Maserati Ghibli and was about to produce the VW Golf. Giugiaro had never designed a motorcycle in his life. That was arguably the point. Ducati did not want another motorcycle designer's motorcycle.

What Giugiaro actually did

The result is usually called the folded-paper look, and the name fits. Flat planes, hard creases, a tank with a crisp shoulder line running back into an angular side panel. In 1974 this was exactly what expensive cars looked like.

The commitment went further than bodywork. The engine cases were squared off to match, which is why an 860 looks different from a 750 GT even with the paint stripped off. Giugiaro also specified tall, wide handlebars, a car designer's idea of a comfortable riding position.

Motorcyclists did not buy it. Parked next to the 750 SS at Milan, and against Laverda's 750 SFC and the Moto Guzzi 750 S, the 860 read as the odd one out. De Eccher's 15,000 became roughly 6,000 across the whole range. Production of the 860 GT started in September 1974, and by the end of 1975 at least a third of them were still sitting unsold.

De Eccher left in December 1975. Giugiaro left with him. The leftover stock was fitted with a rounder tank and a new seat and sold as the 860 GTS.

Bevel drive, and no desmo

Here is the thing most 860 write-ups get wrong, including the one that used to sit at this URL: the 860 GT is not a desmodromic motorcycle.

Ducati's desmodromic system closes the valves mechanically instead of with springs, and in 1974 it was reserved for the expensive bikes. The 750 SS had it. The 860 GT did not. Its heads use ordinary valve springs with screw-and-locknut clearance adjustment, which is why owners call these the springhead twins.

What the 860 does share with the fast Ducatis is the architecture that matters. It is a 90 degree V-twin with a single overhead cam per cylinder, and the cams are driven by a vertical shaft and bevel gears rather than a chain or a belt. That tower is the signature of the whole 1971 to 1985 bevel family, and it is the reason these engines sound and feel the way they do.

The 863.9cc came from boring the 750 out by 6mm, from 80mm to 86mm, on the same 74.4mm stroke. That makes it properly oversquare, and it shows in how the bike behaves: it pulls from almost nothing. Compression is 9.9:1, carburetion is a pair of 32mm Dell'Ortos, and the gearbox is a five-speed. Ducati never published an official power figure. Contemporary testers landed somewhere between 57 and 60 horsepower around 6,900 rpm, and a top speed of about 109 mph.

The 860 also got electronic ignition, which was forward-thinking for 1974 and is now one of the first things an owner replaces. The original Ducati Elettronica units are fifty years old, the pickup wiring runs close to the header, and a dead stator plate is one of the standard 860 stories.

What it is actually like to ride

The 860 was in the shop about as often as it was on the road. Mine was cantankerous in the way only a mid-1970s Italian electrical system can be, and I spent real money keeping it running.

When it ran, it was worth all of it. The torque is the headline. You do not need revs and you rarely need to think about which gear you are in, because 864cc of oversquare twin will just lean on it.

It is heavy for the size. Dry weight is 408 lb and it is closer to 500 lb with fluids in it, on a 61 inch wheelbase, and you feel every bit of that in the first thirty seconds. Bumps stop mattering. Mid-corner ripples that would upset a lighter bike simply do not register. I used to describe it as driving a tank on two wheels, and I meant it as a compliment about half the time.

The cost is that you commit to a corner once. Pick your line, set the bike, and that is the line you are getting. Trying to tighten or open it mid-corner is work, and on a bike that long and heavy with a 38mm Ceriani fork and Marzocchi shocks, it is work you would rather not be doing at speed. The flip side is that the cornering grip, once you are in, was better than most of what else was available in 1975.

The front brake is a single 280mm Brembo disc on the GT. Twin discs were an option, and became standard on the GTS. If you are riding an 860 regularly, that is not an optional option.

The two changes worth making

Two modifications turned my 860 from something I tolerated into something I still think about.

The first was clip-ons. Giugiaro's tall wide bars are the worst thing about riding the bike: they give you leverage you do not want, they put your weight in the wrong place, and contemporary testers blamed them for a gentle weave that showed up past about 85 mph. Dropping to clip-ons changes the bike completely. It steers with more intent, it settles down at speed, and it finally looks like what the angular bodywork was always hinting at. Cafe racer lines, sport bike feel.

Ducati agreed, incidentally. When the GTS arrived for 1976, one of the changes was flatter bars.

The second was an electric starter. The early 860 GT is kick only, and the kickstart geometry is unkind: the lever swings where your shin already is. Ducati had worked this out too and introduced the 860 GTE in January 1975 with a starter motor and a bigger battery, at a cost of about 22 lb. Retrofitting one was the single best thing I did to the bike, and I would do it again before I did anything else.

GT, GTE, GTS, 900 GTS

The naming is confusing enough to be worth laying out plainly.

• 860 GT (from September 1974): the original Giugiaro bodywork, kickstart only, single front disc.
• 860 GTE (from January 1975): the same bike with an electric starter and a larger battery.
• 860 GTS (1976 to 1977): rounder tank, revised seat, flatter handlebars, twin front discs and electric start as standard, revised final drive.
• 900 GTS (1978 to 1979): the same motorcycle, renamed to match the rest of the range. Same 864cc, still spring valves.

The bike that actually replaced the line was the 900 SD Darmah, shown at Bologna in 1976 and in production from 1977. Ducati handed the styling to Leopoldo Tartarini of Italjet, a former Ducati racer who understood the audience, and this time gave the road bike the desmodromic heads from the 900 SS. Rounder, faster, better received. Everything the 860 was supposed to be.

What an 860 costs now

The 860 GT listed at $2,549 in 1975, and it is one of the few 1970s Ducatis that has not run away from ordinary buyers.

Across the Bring a Trailer and Iconic results we track on our Ducati 860 GT model page and 860 GTS page, five 860s have come to auction. Four sold, between $7,100 and $8,500, and a modified 1976 GT was bid to $7,400 without meeting reserve. The most recent sales were both in December 2025: a 1975 860 GT track project at $8,500 and a 1977 860 GTS at $8,000.

For context, a 750 SS from the same factory in the same decade is a six-figure motorcycle. You are buying the same bevel-drive bottom end, the same bearings and the same bevel towers, in the bike that nobody wanted.

The reason is exactly the reason it failed. The styling that killed it in 1974 now reads as an honest artifact of its moment, which is more than you can say for a lot of 1970s design that tried to be timeless.

If you are looking at one

A short list, in the order I would work through it.

• Ignition first. Assume the original electronic ignition is tired or already replaced. Ask which system is fitted and when. A Sachse or similar replacement is a selling point, not a red flag.
• Wiring near the headers. The pickup wiring runs close to real heat and the insulation goes hard and cracks. Look, do not take a word for it.
• Bevel tower and shim setup. The bevel gears need correct shimming. A rebuild done without care is expensive to unpick, so paperwork matters more than mileage here.
• Which model you are actually buying. Electric start, tank shape and disc count tell you GT from GTE from GTS faster than the paperwork does.
• Bars. If it still wears the original high wide bars, factor in clip-ons, and ride it both ways before you decide I am wrong.

None of this makes it a sensible first classic. It makes it the one you keep thinking about afterwards, which in my case is precisely what happened.

Worth reading next: our guide to buying a vintage Ducati, the story of Fabio Taglioni and the desmo system the 860 never got, the 1974 Ducati 750 SS it was shown alongside, and the full history of Ducati.

Frequently Asked Questions

Photographs of the 1975 Ducati 860 GT by William Flaiz. Period advertising and 860 GTS images from the RunMotoRun archive.