Four days and counting from the release of what is claimed to be the next great Ducati model - at least if you believe the hyper-hyperbole. One has to hand it to Ducati for creating just as much buzz about this bike as they did last year with the 1098. That’s not an easy thing to do back to back.

Thus far on the Internet all signs would seem to suggest that the bike which will be announced on Tuesday will be an all new design which replaces the venerable Monster line.
This rumor seemed to gain traction (and credibility) when Ducati North America CEO Michael Lock stated in Power Sports Business, “Miraculously, we’ve managed to keep this bike secret… How we’ve done that, I have no idea because we’ve never done it before…”, before he called whatever the new bike is, “possibly the most significant bike that we’ve had in 10 years.”

Few bikes in the Ducati arsenal would seem to classify as truly ’significant’ when you’re talking about sales. The Monster, which has over the course of its 15 year run kept the company solvent numerous times, would seem to be the logical recipient of some attention, especially after the revamp of the Superbike line up last year.

The circumstantial evidence of a new Monster in the works also appears quite strong…

The buzz started in September with MCN’s spy shot of what appears to be the ‘new Monster’ during testing, of which they said,

The Ducati Monster is set to get its first major redesign since it’s introduction in 1993 for the 2008 model year, but until now Ducati has kept the motorcycle’s crucial redesign under wraps.

The spy test shot was followed up by a Motociclismo Magazine artist rendition and blurb,

The Ducati Monster 695 will be presented at the EICMA in Milan later this month and will be the first of the saga. Within a year we know that version will arrive in 1100

A few weeks later this photo/rendition/sketch spread across the net.

Then, Moto-Station.com got in on the action, publish their artist rendition of the new bike.

So now Ducatisti around the world wait to see just what it is that the company has up its sleeve and in four days we’ll all find out if any of these rumors/images nailed the new bike or if they were all ridiculously off base…