Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario: Carbon, 247 PS, 500 units

For its 100th birthday, Ducati is building the Superleggera V4 Centenario, the most extreme road-legal motorcycle of all time — in 500 numbered examples. A collector's item made of carbon and titanium.

Some motorcycles are built to be ridden. Others are built because they have to exist. The new Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario belongs to the second group. A collector's item, a statement, a dream of carbon and titanium — celebrating the 100th birthday of the brand from Borgo Panigale.

A tradition of dreams

Ducati calls them Superleggera, the super-lightweights — and means a family of its own. They only arrive when the engineers from Bologna deliberately open the doors: no compromises, no specifications, no marketing brief. It is about the one motorcycle enthusiasts dream of.

The series began in 2013 with the 1199 Superleggera — the first production motorcycle with a frame, swingarm and wheels made of magnesium alloy. In 2016, the 1299 Superleggera followed, the first production motorcycle with a carbon chassis. Then, in 2020, came the Panigale V4 Superleggera, which took aerodynamics to the extreme. And now, in the centenary year: the Centenario.

The thing with the numbers

Sometimes technology becomes so absurd that all you can do is look at it in amazement.

• 228 PS on the road. 247 PS with racing exhaust.
• 173 kg ready to ride without fuel. With Racing Kit: 167 kg.
• Power-to-weight ratio: 1,48 PS/kg — a figure no road-legal production motorcycle has ever achieved.

The Desmosedici Stradale R 1100 — developed specifically for this one project — delivers this with manually adjusted desmodromic valve timing. A small plaque bears the name of the technician who adjusted the valves. On every single one of the 500 examples. Who builds something like this, other than Ducati?

World firsts one after another

The Centenario is the world's first road-legal motorcycle with carbon-ceramic brake discs. Brembo developed them specially — 450 grams lighter per disc than steel, 40 % less moment of inertia, the same braking performance.

It is also the world's first production motorcycle with a fork featuring carbon upper tubes. Öhlins supplies the NPX 25/30 in unidirectional carbon — eight to ten percent lighter than on a normal Panigale V4, with noticeably faster changes of direction.

Carbon frame: 17 % lighter than aluminium. Carbon swingarm: 21 % lighter. Carbon wheels. Carbon rear subframe. The fairing remains partially unpainted to show the material. Every single carbon component is inspected for micro-defects using aerospace processes.

Rosso Centenario

The paintwork has its own name: Rosso Centenario. A matt, dark red that recalls the roots — the Ducati 60 of 1949, the brand's first motorcycle, and the Gran Sport „Marianna" of 1955, engineer Fabio Taglioni's first racing motorcycle. The same colour adorns the Lenovo team's factory Desmosedicis in MotoGP in 2026. So anyone who owns a Centenario rides in the same colour as Pecco and Marc.

For those who do not find that enough: 100 further examples are available as the Centenario Tricolore — a tribute to the 750 F1 Endurance Racing of the 1980s, the brand's last “classic” two-valve racing model. Italian tricolour in a modern interpretation.

The box, the plaque, the key

Strictly speaking, it is not bought. Strictly speaking, it is kept. Every Centenario comes in a specially designed wooden crate. With a certificate of authenticity, tailor-made cover, garage mat and paddock stands. The individual number (XXX/500) is laser-engraved on the upper triple clamp. It also appears on the cockpit display when starting. Even the ignition key bears it on a titanium insert.

Those who want to can order the matching outfit: helmet, leather jacket and suit in Rosso Centenario. And 26 owners will be allowed to test their motorcycle's performance on a racetrack on 6 and 7 July 2026 — directly after World Ducati Week — crowned by a lap on the real Desmosedici GP26.

Conclusion

My impression: the Centenario is not a motorcycle, but a manifesto. It will probably never really be ridden — most of the 500 units will stand in climate-controlled garages, covered, photographed, stroked. That is both the irony and the appeal of this bike. Ducati shows what is technically possible when engineers are given a free hand, and turns it into a piece of brand history. Anyone who gets one holds part of the brand in their hands. Anyone who does not get one — like all of us here — keeps dreaming. And that may be the most honest reason why motorcycles like this are built.