2001 Ducati Other on 2040-motos

The story behind the MH900e,

.....as a concept created by the Ducati designer Pierre Terblanche in homage to Mike Hailwood's 1978 win of the Isle of Man TT. Giving way to the model designation "MH".

In September 1998 the sketch was presented to the general public at the Intermot Show in Munich and met with rave reviews. Due to the enthusiastic response from the press and public, Ducati decided to post a questionnaire on their website to test the true interest of the MH900e fans. 300 Ducatisti responded positively. With this information, Federico Minoli and Massimo Bordi (General Manager of Ducati) decided to take the risk and produce a limited run of two thousand hand-built bikes. The first one thousand bikes would be produced in 2000 and the second thousand would be produced in 2001.

The sale of the MH900e was as unique as the bike itself. Ducati made the decision to sell the new bike directly to the consumer exclusively via the Internet in a form of e-commerce known as B-2-C (Business to Consumer). This was a first for any motorcycle manufacturer. It was a risky move, but the result could not have been any better

The Ducati website opened for orders on January 1, 2000 at 00:01am GMT at a price of Euro 15,000. The first 1000 units were sold out in 31 short minutes. The remaining bikes were sold over the next few weeks. Individuals made purchases from 20 different countries. The estimated breakdown of the sales was 30% from Europe, 30% from the US and 39% from Japan.