Bloodlust - Honda NR750 vs. Ducati Desmosedici

It may be that puberty was confusing me at the time, but back in 1979 I could never understand why the Honda NR500 thingy was so rubbish compared to Barry Sheene’s Suzuki and Kenny Robert’s Yamaha. So it was only when I grew up a bit that I began to realize what ‘Big H’ was trying to achieve. From then on, and especially when my teen hero Freddie Spencer appeared on the GP scene, I took more interest in the progress of the NR (New Racing) 500, or ‘Never Ready.’ Freddie was flying at the 1981 British GP in 1981, but it quit and so did Honda soon afterwards. Or so I thought. Because when I signed for Honda in 1987 to ride in 500 GPs alongside Spencer, I caught a glimpse of a new NR during one of my many trips to HRC in Japan. Being the new boy, I decided to blank it from my mind and tell no one in just in case someone accidentally pushed me off Mount Fuji. As we know now, that engine was the basis of the NR750 road bike.

Honda’s slightly frivolous venture into the world of oval pistons started, publicly anyway, in 1978. Returning to the GP scene Honda wanted to develop a four-stroke challenger to the two-stroke machines that were currently reigning the 500 GP class. The first NR, the NR500 0X, combined an oval-pistoned engine with a monocoque frame. By the end of its development it was reckoned that the NR produced around 130bhp and revved to over 20,000rpm, but despite all their best efforts Honda couldn’t make it competitive. In 1982 Honda relented and joined the two-stroke masses with the V3 NS500. But the NR project wasn’t dead. Not yet.

In 1987 Honda entered the Le Mans Endurance race with the NR750. Weighing just 145kg the NR reputedly made 150bhp, but unfortunately failed to finish the race due to its oval pistons going gaga. Honda continued to race this bored-out NR engine wrapped in a continually improving chassis in F1 spec in the odd race around the globe. And then it was banned by the FIM. Spoilsports. We had seen the last of the NR, until 1990...

In a triumphant fanfare of corporate glory Honda debuted the road going NR750 in 1990 by using the NR750 as traveling marshal’s bikes at the Suzuka 8-Hour race. Two years later the NR750 was unveiled as the ultimate road bike.  Amongst other things Honda claimed this new bike was capable of topping 300kph (187mph), something it later proved with little Loris Capirossi at the helm as it set both flying mile and standing quarter records. But with only 200 made, and with a £38,000 price tag, this was not a bike for the masses. This was Honda showing the world how clever they were.The limited production run was never increased and the NR remained a one-off production run of super-exclusive machines.

Compared to the NR, Ducati’s Desmosedici appeared on the race scene with far more of an impact. When, in 2002, four strokes were first allowed in MotoGP Ducati was busy developing their MotoGP bike back at Bologna, a project that had started only a year earlier. In keeping with Ducati’s image the MotoGP bike had to have a few key features, namely a tubular chassis, desmodromic valves, but it couldn’t be a twin. Twins simply wouldn’t produce enough power for MotoGP, so Ducati made a ‘super twin.’ They put two 90-degree L-twins together and made a V4.

Throughout 2002 two versions of the engine were tested, one with an irregular firing order, and one where twin pairs of pistons fired together. This became known as the twin-pulse motor. Initially the twin pulse configuration was found to put too much  strain on the engine’s internal components, so Ducati Corse decided they would line up on the grid in 2003 using the screamer engine underneath Troy Bayliss and Loris Capirossi. From the outset the bike was blisteringly fast. They swapped to twin pulse a year later when they solved certain reliability issues.

When Ducati decided to go Moto GP racing with a four cylinder I thought they had made the worst decision ever. They had been dominant in WSB racing for 10 years but surely that was because they had an unfair capacity advantage and their special Desmodronic system. And what did they know about four cylinder engines or GP racing? It wasn’t long before I was eating humble crumble because in its first ever MotoGP the Desmo finished in third and fifth place with, fittingly, Italian Loris leading Troy home. Then, in only its sixth race at Catalunya, Loris put the Desmo on the top step of the podium, a stunning achievement. Ducati Corse’s team of engineers (whose average age was just 28) had pulled off the same feat they’d done in WSB: beaten the combined might of the Japanese. Then Ducati dropped its bombshell.

World Ducati Weekend, 2004, and in front of thousands of fans, Ducati president Federico Minoli announced that there would be a limited run of road-going MotoGP bikes, called the Desmosedici RR. The Italian company was going to do what the Japanese never have the balls to - build a MotoGP replica for the road. Four years later Ducati has lived up to its promise and sold all 1,500 Desmosdici RRs. It’s not as exclusive as the NR750, but the Ducati represents the most technically-advanced road bike ever built. It is the Honda NR750 of its day. - Niall Mackenzie

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