One of the cooler parts that comes from running Asphalt & Rubber is the feedback we get from our Bothan spy network that read the site. No sooner did we publish Luca Bar’s renders of his Ducati SuperSport concept, did we get tips that Ducati was actually currently considering such a model for its future model road map. There’s no doubt that the SS line had a cult following in its day, and the fact still remains that Ducati does not have a “tamer sport bike” in its line that would appeal to the veteran Ducatisti.

Sure, there’s the stripped-down 1098 superbike Streetfighter, but the streetfighter genre is a young man’s game, and the case can be made that an SS owner and a Streetfighter owner are two very different people. The same can be said for the Monster’s core constituency, which the SuperSport would likely share pieces with from the common parts bin. Ducati also has the Diavel and Multistrada 1200 as alternatives for the torture rack Superbike series, but again the issue is that the owners of those bikes are likely different buyers than the ones found in the SuperSport’s air-cooled sweet spot.

Likely to be based off the Monster’s two-valve air-cooled motor, we could see Ducati hot rodding the 100hp DesmoDue to a more stout spec…say 110hp or so, which thus also helps differentiate it from the Monster line, and emphasizing the sportiness of the bike. We doubt such a model will debut at EICMA this year, but we’ll be keeping our ears out as to whether this project gets some legs and enters the development stage.