Vintage motorcycles. Ducati 24 hours 250 cc (1973). Museum Moto Bassella, Spain.
Ducati is an Italian motorcycle-manufacturing company that is part of the Ducati group, and is headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German parent company is Audi, itself owned by the Volkswagen Group.
In 1926 Antonio Cavalieri Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno, founded Società Scientifica Radiobrevetti Ducati (SSR Ducati) in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough to enable construction of a new factory in the Borgo Panigale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing. It was finally destroyed by around 40 Consolidated B-24 Liberators on 12 October 1944 as part of the United States Army Air Forces’s Operation Pancake, which involved some 700 aircraft flying from airfields in the Province of Foggia.
