[Ducati] 1.2 litre bike coming soon

[ducatisti]

A bit embarrassed that I'd forgotten all about the Guzzi - having spent 
a fair bit of my youth being an 850 rider.

Someone here will surely know the answer to both these questions. IIRC, 
the first racebike with what we think of as a *modern* SSS was the Elf 
500. Hondas used to (they still may) have Elf badges on the "Pro-Arm." 
You can't really exclude prototypes from the racebike classification 
since the 500 series was for "prototypical" motorcycles - 
production/homologated bikes were specifically excluded by the FIM.

Here's a shot of Ron Haslam on the Elf in 1987:
http://www.vtgav.com/shop/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=shop.flypage&product_id=25&category_id=3&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2

And here's a few more of vairous Elf designs:
http://www.appeldephare.com/annex/page1.html

But the first successful bike campaigned in racing, with a modern SSS, 
was probably the RC30 in 1988 - which was derived from the Honda 
France/Elf RVF750 endurance bike. The modern interpretations pretty much 
all lead back to Elf's work in the 1980s.

cody


the Kid wrote:
> Who was the first to use it on a race bike? (successful circuit bike, 
> not prototype) I went to the art of the motorcycle exhibit and saw an 
> early bike there (50's or 60's) with not only a sss but a ss fork too. 
> I'm sure someone here knows of which bike I speak.
> Charles