Production Ducati Scrambler CR42I Could Happen, If People Like It

While at last weekend’s Bike Shed Moto Show, we couldn’t help but spend quite a long time ogling the two concepts Ducati brought along - the CR42I and RR24I. We were perhaps taken with the cafe racer-inspired CR42I (above) more than the flat tracker-style RR24I (below), so naturally, we ended up asking the Ducati execs present about the chances of a production model. 

The answer? It’s complicated. Ducati was indeed paying a lot of attention to public reaction to the bikes at the show, however. “The opinion of the people, how much they appreciate one of the others is really interesting,” chief Ducati designer Andrea Amato said. 

Should the CR421 go ahead, it’d likely have to be a model in its own right rather than a kit of accessories, which would be “more difficult,” Rocco Canosa, Scrambler Ducati & Diavel Product Sponsor explained. These aren’t just bolt-on parts - the rear subframe has been cut down to accommodate the new tail unit.

The bikes aren’t too far away from being feasible for production, which gives some hope, with a bit of a caveat. “They are quite close, but we have to clarify some technical issues,” Amato says. Along with the subframe modifications for the CR421, these issues include elements such as mounting points for the bikini fairing and how feasible it’ll be to produce the fairing in a production context while maintaining the right kind of quality. 

Demand also needs to be gauged. “After [the] feedback we got from this show, we’re back to the company, the engineers, and then we’ll say ‘okay, the concept is well perceived - you need to put into production, [but] how many [do we make]?,” Canosa posits, concluding, “It’s not an easy one”. 

The project started at the beginning of the year, but it wasn’t until February that the Bike Shed Moto Show was earmarked as the debut location, placing designer Francesca Galluzzi in a rush to get the bikes finished in time. It came down to the wire, with the bikes only being completed the day before they were due to shop out. Galluzzi also confirms that while the inspiration for the CR42I was two historical Ducati bikes - the 750SS and Pantah - the RR24I looks (sort of) to the future, with the Mad Max franchise cited as a key influence. 

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