Now That Pierre Terblanche Has Left Ducati

By now it’s hard to imagine that there could be any Ducatisti left on the planet who’ve missed the news before the holiday break that Pierre Terblanche has decided to leave the company in order to pursue other avenues in life.

For many this announcement surely has been met with broad smiles and resounding cheers since Pierre’s time at Ducati was an extraordinarily polarizing decade. Members of the Ducati faith either loved the man and his work or absolutely hated them both. There simply was no middle ground to be had. Nor in all reality should there have been.

Many might argue with his work, but perhaps Pierre’s truest talent has always been his ability to push the conventional aesthetics envelope forward and propel far-reaching designs into the hands of the general public – whether they were ready for them or not.

Put in charge of the company’s design department in the wake of Massimo Tamburini’s departure for MV Agusta, Pierre’s turbulent tenure at Ducati was thrust into the public eye when he was tasked with the unenviable (and perhaps humanly impossible) responsibility of replacing both the man who mentored him and the iconic 916 platform. By definition that’s a near impossibility.

Unlike a lot of marquees that simply ride the current wave of public perception and opinion, designing at Ducati means you must serve two masters. On one hand you must push the boundaries of the aesthetic language forward and define sex appeal and yet on the other hand you must remain beholden the traditionalists or risk losing the company’s core constituency.

Combined those variables are fraught with disaster – and for many that disaster was simply that Pierre was not Massimo. Yet in spite of the degree of difficulty that needed to be exhibited in order to thrive, over the course of the past ten years Pierre successfully delivered numerous highly styled bikes to the marketplace. Bikes whose styling influenced generations of other manufacturers models in the proceeding years after Pierre penned them.

Of course nothing lasts forever and everyone has the ability to choose what they wish to do with their lives. Thus far it sounds like the parting was quite amicable as Pierre was neither asked to resign nor forced out, but rather left of his own volition.

Yet as a fan of both the brand and the bikes that Pierre has penned over the years, I’ve personally have found the news of his departure rather saddening. Not because I’ve lost faith in the brand – The 1098/848 and Desmosedici RR demonstrate that Claudio Domenicali, Giandrea Fabbro and the rest of the folks running the company clearly know what they are doing – but rather because I’ve always looked forward to seeing what Pierre would come up with next. His visions of the future repeatedly turned out to be our visions of the future – even when we didn’t know it at the time.

Over the past several years I’ve had the distinct pleasure of getting to know the man while working on various motorcycle related TV projects and he was hardly the villain that some folks who hang around the various motorcycle message boards made him out to be. Quite the opposite in fact. When I’ve been around Pierre, he has always struck me as a remarkably passionate, enthusiastic, affable and engaging member of the motorcycle community. One of those rare individuals who has the unique ability to see trends well before others admit to their existence and more importantly he’s repeatedly shown the conviction to trust his instincts. In an industrial design world filled with mass replication that’s a skill that ought to be celebrated not admonished.

Put Pierre near a bike – any bike, regardless of whether it was his creation or not – and you can see his eyes light up as he breaks down the visual identity and the engineering behind it. The off-kilter perception that he’s merely a ‘designer’ and not a true ‘motorcycle designer’ or ‘motorcyclist’ – as put forth on more then one Ducati message board – is one of the most preposterous things I’ve read in quite sometime. The man not only understands bikes better then most folks, but is a dyed-in-the-wool rider. A man who understands the allure of clear asphalt, open roads and the need for humanity to explore at speed.

I’m not suggesting that Pierre is a saint nor that he always got it ‘right’ – in my book he didn’t always achieve perfection – but he certainly got it ‘right’ more then he got it ‘wrong’ and in the arena of industrial design that in and of itself is no small feat.

Of course when you’re the head of anything additional layers of responsibility are attached to your work. In the world of design someone has to shoulder the burden of ‘vision’ regardless of whether it’s a car, a pen, a toaster or a motorcycle. Within that ‘vision’ however stands a myriad of choices and not all of those decisions in the end are left with the person deemed responsible for the final outcome. Sometimes it’s a part supplier who simply can’t deliver a mass produce piece exactly like the one on the designers’ prototype. Other times it’s an entire division – like the engineering department – unilaterally deciding that the time has to come to break ranks with tradition and move towards a different solution. Perhaps most importantly to define the success or failure of a product simply by its sales numbers – especially when you’re talking about cutting edge design in a niche part of the greater motorcycle market – often ignores the vast economic factors and realities that surround the commodity in question.

In some respects Pierre’s detractors were justified in their observations. I have no doubt that the man could be hard to work with – I’ve thrown back a few cappuccinos with him and by the end of our heated conversation about cruisers found myself coined a ‘cruiser racist’ and feeling the dire need to strangle the man. But then every designer I’ve ever met has been both hell bent in their beliefs and an unapologetic perfectionist. Unlike engineers who can make judgment calls based purely on numbers, designers have no such luck. They live in a vacuum that demands them to peer into crystal balls and predict what the public will want three, five, or ten years into the future. Think about that for a moment – five years is a really long time from right now. I would submit to succeed in a situation like that a designer has to strongly champion what they ‘believe’ a piece, a part or an object should look like or their vision will ultimately be compromised and when that happens the product that results is neither appropriate for today or tomorrow.

The truth however is that conversing with Pierre about a particular machine was always a lesson in compartmentalized discourse. He knew exactly what he could or could not control and he was exceptionally aware that the tastes of motorcycle riders across the globe were in a state of rapid flux. It’s my opinion that this no doubt put him – and thereby his point of view – at odds with those within the company who view Ducati strictly under the banner of race-breed heritage. My sense – and I want to reiterate that I have no empirical knowledge to back this up – is that over the past several years as the ‘everything revolves around racing’ mentality exploded within Ducati from a corporate perspective – and to great success mind you – the width and breath of Pierre’s imagination was slowly being caged in. In this regard an amicable parting, which by all accounts this divorce worked out, was best for all involved. Everyone that is except the motorcycle consumer, who at least for the time being will be deprived of Pierre’s critical eye and remarkable imagination. Even the dyed in the wool haters lose out in this deal, because let’s face it over the past five or ten years whose been better fodder for motorcycle based water-cooler discussions?

In the end I would submit that Pierre was the victim of unenviable timing that forced him to replace a living legend, a host of economic factors well outside of his control (like the dot com bubble burst or the Texas Pacific Group’s well intended but economically unfeasible restoration attempt of the company for example) and a public relations built myth which has forever tainted the image of who Pierre truly is in the minds of millions of consumers. My gut tells me that while he leaves the company at the height of its revitalization and at a time when success on the track has never been higher or displayed more publicly, ultimately his place in Ducati history and lore is more then secure. As time goes on, no matter how good the current Ducati design department proves to be, my sense is that we will all look back at Pierre’s time in the company and his contribution to the marquee as one of the great definable eras of the brand. Like many Ducatisti, I wish Pierre the best in his future endeavors and I sincerely hope that he finds his way back to the drawing board in the motorcycle realm. To lose an artist of his caliber this early in their career is a loss for all motorcyclists.