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Ducati 350SCD Sport Corsa Desmo

'Unlike the majority of other makes, most racing Ducatis – bikes that have competed in events all over the world – have not been purpose-built racing models, but race-kitted street bikes. In 1957 the Bologna factory produced its first overhead cam (roadster) single, and right from the outset, large numbers of the singles were stripped of their road-going equipment, and were tuned and raced by their enthusiastic owners.' – Mick Walker, 'Ducati - the Racing Story'.

This approach - creating a competition machine by modifying a production roadster - was also followed by the factory, which was rarely able to afford the considerable expense of developing a pukka racer, while in terms of publicity, racing a machine derived from a production model clearly had its advantages. In this regard, one of Ducati's most famous victories was achieved at the Barcelona 24 Hours endurance race in 1964, when Bruno Spaggiari and Giuseppe Mandolini brought their over-bored (to 285cc) Mach 1 roadster home ahead of a field of much larger machines, setting new race records for distance and speed in the process.

In 1967 Ducati introduced the revised and much improved 'wide case' engine, which had been developed in the factory's SCD (Scuderia Corsa Ducati) racers. These special SCD works bikes used designer Fabio Taglioni's famous desmodromic valve gear, where the valves are closed by a cam rather than springs. Disappointingly for Ducati, its SCDs were thrown out of the 1967 Daytona 200 as their desmo valve gear was deemed too far a departure from that of the production roadster.

The Ducati 350SCD is the machine that introduced the ‘wide case’ single, a new crankcase design that later found its way into the road bikes—and the design that made Taglioni realize that Ducati could develop the single no further. So he effectively stitched two engines together, and created the L-twin layout we know today. On a dyno, a well-tuned SCD 350 will reportedly deliver over 40 horses at the back wheel, a bhp/liter ratio that still passes muster today.