the ducati imola custom café racer by sabotage cycles

paul smart is notorious in the bike world for winning the imola 200 in 1972, at age 29, riding ducati’s iconic ‘750 racer’ motorcycle. this game-changing win helped shape the italian manufacturer’s approach to racing, and lead to the production of the green-framed ‘imola 750’. today, the café racer is widely considered a collector’s item and will fetch serious money at auction. based in indonesia, sabotage cycles put itself to the test and built a bike that mimics the original ‘750’.

all images © sabotage cycles

sabotage cycles began by acquiring a ducati ‘860 GT’, a motorcycle that shared many of the same characteristics as the ‘750 imola’. the ‘860’ also features a 750 l-twin engine design, with larger 450 sleeves to help achieve the larger capacity, and the same frame design. the indonesian garage has opted for a raw, naked, café racer, adding originality to its own interpretation. with no front fairing to build, it then painstakingly formed bike’s fuel tank and tail from sheets of aluminum.

perhaps one of the most unique parts on sabotage’s ‘imola 750’ is its headlamp which was originally fitted to a ferrari. the headlight is a marchal fog lamp that had been picked up especially for the build, sitting proudly at the front. the finishing touch is a high-mounted imola-style exhaust pipe that is wearing heat-shielded megaphone mufflers. to fit the imola styled aluminum bodywork, the ‘860’s’ frame was sent to an expert for massaging before being painted in ‘imola’ green.

original source return of the cafe racers