Hi Roger! Let me respond point by point.... I just have to respond to Mario's trashing of the new Monster design. First, though comments are mostly negative on the Internet, they sure aren't "99.9% negative" as he purports. >>>>I don't know about that Roger. I scrolled for page after page after page and I saw two positive posts. One of which Ducati responded to by saying "Thanks!" and people jumped on them for only responding to the positive post. I mean, I scrolled through a LOT of pages! And I think it's telling that out of all those pages, I can remember TWO positive posts. That was on the Ducati Facebook page. Like most of us I think, I also hang out on other internet forums, including my own local Ducati club. On our page it was mostly negative though there were more positives on our little page than on all the hundreds of posts I read on the Ducati page. Other pages I frequent were more like the Ducati Facebook page with overwhelmingly negative reviews. I don't know where you go for your bike material but we must visit vastly different demographics! Many would like to see the machine in-person before they reach a conclusion, and rightly so. Mario, I suggest you make a visual side view comparison of MT-09 (the real competitor, not MT-07) vs 2021 Monster before you say "it's a dead ringer" in design. >>>>A friend of mine made a meme of the MT-07 and the Monster one above the other. You couldn't get closer unless you used tracing paper! We'll have to agree to disagree on this as styling is so subjective and people see what they want to see. A lot of guys are saying it looks like an MV but aside from the headlight, I don't see that at all. To me, the Monster and MT-07 are almost identical. Sickeningly so IMHO. Similar, yes, but far from identical. If your goal is to compete effectively in the mid-size naked market, it's not surprising your bike might look something like the market leaders. Plus, there's not too many body parts to work with on nakeds. >>>>Those are both good points! Next, let's think about a couple of automotive examples - Corvette and Jeep Cherokee, both which made radical exterior design changes. The owners of the older versions decried the changes, saying they no longer could carry the branding. Both went on to sales success. >>>>Well, I remember when the Jeep Wrangler came out with square headlights and the Jeep guys went ballistic! Jeep went back to round headlights as a result. As for the Corvette, Chevy was smart and made the old model available alongside the new mid-engined one. Well, there was some overlap at least. I'm not sure the mid-engine Vette is the same demographic as the front-engined one. So there's both sides to this issue. I say we need to have a little more faith in Ducati planners and designers. They decided to remove longtime design cues in favor of better technologies (trellis to front frame, for example), make the ergonomics more adaptable to more riders and bring the bike back to its roots by reducing substantial weight, all with no price increase. Pretty lofty ambitions. >>>>I can go along with you on this. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's an ugly bike at all. It's quite nice actually. It's just not a Monster. But yes, your points are all valid so worth considering. Ducati is not risking as much as they were in 1992 when the Monster saved the company from financial ruin. They had only a few models to sell back then, whereas today they have seven lines of bikes and the Monsters are not the top sellers (Multistradas are). This fact gives the designers freedom to take more risks. >>>>More good points and I did not know that the Multi was the volume seller. I thought the Scramblers were. But good point about the Monster not being the leader so it allowed the designers more freedom. That is one point that did not occur to me at all! There are a couple things I might suggest to Ducati before these bikes are released to production. First, the engine is so covered it's difficult to discern it's a V-twin. Why not do some raised areas on the cam belt covers, finished in aluminum, like the XDiavel, to highlight the V-twin format? >>>>Yay!!! That is EXACTLY what I was proposing to the guys in my club! Make the L-twin noticeable! Second, why not highlight the front frame they're so proud of by giving it some color or other treatment to make it stand out as a design element (instead of hiding it in black), like was done on some models with the trellis? >>>>along the same lines, another guy in my club claimed that this new Monster was more in the spirit of the Monster than if they had done a trellis frame. His reasoning was...the original Monster was a stripped down 851/888 and seeing has how the new Panigales have an aluminum front frame, the new Monster does as well, mimicking the original Monster/Superbike connection. In summation, I think we're pretty close on everything except for the appearance. I don't see how you can't see how alike they are. Mario ________________________________ L From: Roger Sears via Ducati <ducati@list.ducati.net> Sent: Monday, December 7, 2020 1:34 PM To: ducati@list.ducati.net <ducati@list.ducati.net> Cc: Roger Sears <rlsedition@yahoo.com> Subject: [Ducati] Re: Ducati Digest, Vol 132, Issue 3 To get the links and updates on all today's Ducati news: http://www.ductalk.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/ducnet _____________________ Ducati mailing list -- ducati@list.ducati.net To unsubscribe send an email to ducati-leave@list.ducati.net Mailto: %(user_address)s