Once The West Wing wrapped earlier tonight - seriously, has there been a better season? - I stole a few moments and finished the last few pages of Kevin Ash’s book, “Ducati People : Exploring The Passion Beind This Legendary Marque”. After ripping right through “Ducati 999 : Birth of a Legend” picking up another Ducatisti based book seemed like a no brainer.
Usually I find that most motor-related books that deal with company histories tend to be very bland on the character and very heavy on the details. Case in point is my previous experience with Ian Falloon’s “Ducati : Design In The Sign of Emotion” - a perfectly compentent history book, but not a glorious read as far as I was concerned.
Ash however treats the history of Ducati a bit differently. Instead of turning each page and finding what feels like a monotonous desmotronic valve discussion, he focuses on the people instead. The book features a rather large ensemble cast of twenty-four folks for whom beign associated with Ducati is a passion. They all have a varrying degree of importance to the marque, but each is given their own chapter in essence to tell their unique piece of the Ducati story. By no means does this offer a comprehensive history of the brand, but instead small glimpses into the very foundation of what I would call the essence of the brand. None of the chapters are amazingly long in length, but they’re distilled down to one basic core element; feelings. What it felt like to be somewhere or do something. On a personal level I find this sort of editorial slant much more satisfying because let’s be honest here, I don’t really care what millimeter bolt the factory used in ‘73 but I do care about how the factory got from 1973 to today.
The book also offers some interesting perspectives by way of dedicating individual chapters to people you normally would never hear from in the more nuts & bolt history books. One of the women intereviewed is a female factory test rider who started on the assembly line. Another is a rather ordinary desk jockey with no fancy title. Both offer very glowing opinions about working at Ducati, but not in an overhanded PR sensibility.
I was particularly interested in David Gross, Pierre Terblanche and Livio Lodi interviews since I was fortunate enough to met all three when I visited the factory. I was struck by how well all three were captured. Much of what the three men say to Ash I had heard before - and frankly I can’t really blame anyone working at the factory for having what amounts to a stump speech - however it’s nice to see an accurate representation of what these folks are like in real life.
The book was published in 2000 so some of the conversations with the newer Ducati folks feels a bit dated, however a great portion of the book is rather timeless. Especially the interviews with Massimo Tamburini (head of the 916 project), Massimo Bordi (credited with The Monster & The 851), Federico Minoli (current president of the company) & of course Fabio Taglioni (Perhaps The Ducati Godfather?). Before reading the book I had a general sense of all of these men - obviously from some of the books I’ve read but also in large part because their names constantly get mentioned in message boards across the internet - yet after just a few pages with them thier stories all became much more real. In many ways they became much more alive. While I enjoyed getting to know all of those familure names, the interview and subsequent story I enjoyed the most was Technical Director Gianluigi Mengoli. Ash spends a few pages with him recounting what it was like in the 60’s and 70’s inside the Ducati race department. Mengoli recalls how at the time a large portion of the company was being fired so there was no money to spend on racing yet because other racers respected the heritage of the marque they pitched in and helped the Ducati Racing Department out.
Overall I found the book to really be quite an interesting read. While “Ducati 999: Birth of a Legend” was an intricate character study into how the new 999 was born, “Dcuati People” feels more like an fantastic ensemble drama. There’s no over-arching narrative thread throughout the book which made it very easy to pick up and put down at various times. Almost to easy to be honest. There was also no compelling sense of what’s going to happen next either. Once you fly through one person’s chapter it’s over and they’re basically done for the remainder of the book unless someone else’s brings their name up. So it’s a very segmented read by nature of the books construction. On the other hand I often found myself saying, ‘just read one more chapter, it’s only a few pages’. Bottom line is that “Ducati People” is definately worth the read. Big Thumbs up.
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