This futuristic Ducati Scrambler concept design is the winning entry in an official Ducati Design Center competition.
The bike is the work of student designer Peter Harkins, who studies at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California and was just one of 10 finalists selected by the judges.
The 10 finalists were then judged in detail by designer Jeremy Faraud and the head of the Ducati Design Center in Bologna, Italy, Andrea Ferraresi.
The most striking element of the design is the headlight of the concept design which takes the current ‘X’ shape seen on the Scrambler headlight but gives it a much more modern twist with the lighting element floating in an open headlight.
In total, 10 complete, original and different projects were presented but with some features in common. Many of the 10 finalists were electric offerings linked to urban mobility while others were more traditional in appealing to a wider motorcycle audience.
Ducati choose this winner as they felt it represented the ‘true spirit of the brand’.
Ducati Design Center Director Ferraresi said: “The collaboration with the ArtCenter College of Pasadena has given rise to an interesting exchange experience with students from different cultural and academic backgrounds, who have reinterpreted our Scrambler Ducati in a creative way and with very distant points of view.
“Peter Harkins was the best in transforming the brief into a decidedly spot-on project. His work proved to be particularly complete in the study of the proportions and in the development of the details. The reinterpretation that he proposed takes its inspiration from the values of the brand and maintains the typical stylistic canons of the Scrambler Ducati, such as lightness, simplicity of lines and the headlamp characterized by the unmistakable X, now recognized as the signature of the bike.”
Peter Harkins said: “I am thankful to Ducati and ArtCenter for working together to provide this opportunity,” said Peter Harkins. “I am extremely excited to be working alongside such a talented group of designers at Ducati and look forward to learning new skills and techniques. Thank you to my classmates who pushed me to do better and to our teacher, Alex Earle, for inspiring us through his Powersports Class. This is a dream come true!”
History of the Ducati Scrambler
The modern iteration of the Ducati Scrambler was reborn in 2015 and owed its existence to a US market bike that was produced between 1962 and 1976.
There’s no real link – other than the name and styling cues – between the modern bikes as nothing existed in this retro range between 1976 and 2014 when Ducati first showed the new bike to the public, but the ethos is the same.
Ducati pitched the new Scrambler at the ‘cool, young’ crowd and very much not at old school motorcycle riders, and while this is a great idea and there have been some successes in winning over new riders, a large number of Scrambler owners in developed markets are existing Ducati riders already. These owners have been attracted to the cheap purchase and PCP deals on offer for a second Ducati to run alongside a more expensive one.
In 2015 the range kicked off with multiple variants based around the same air-cooled 803cc V-twin motor with Classic, Urban Enduro, Icon, Flat Track Pro and Full Throttle versions. A short while afterwards a smaller capacity 399cc V-twin Sixty2 version was launched.
There have been new models and updates added to the line-up including the Desert Sled and in more recent years larger-capacity Scrambler 1100s were added to the range.
Ducati showed two different concepts in 2019 and these are a tease for two forthcoming models; one a modern-day interpretation of the old Cagiva Elefant adventure bike and the other a more urban Supermoto style bike.
There’s no official line on when these bikes will be seen in dealers but it’s likely to be later this year, to go on sale as 2021 models.
