It takes a special flavor of nutty to take a $25,000 superbike and convert it from a track-focused speed machine into a knobby-tired off-roader. MotoCorsa is exactly that kind of nuts.
The Portland-based Ducati dealer has taken the all-conquering 1199 Panigale S – the superbike of the moment – and transformed it into something that's able to tackle the trails. If just.
"We do an annual off-road trip with a few friends, down in Southeastern Oregon, out in the middle of nowhere," MotoCorsa’s general manager Arun Sharma told RideApart. “I had a set of Continental TKC80s to put on it, when one of my friends comes in and says, 'You know what you should do? Put those TKCs on the Panigale!'"
Thus began a chain of events that would make the world's first – and only – Ducati 1199 Panigale TerraCorsa.
Surprisingly, it didn't take much to get the Ducati off-road-ready. After mounting the tires on a separate set of wheels with different brake discs, the team from MotoCorsa dropped the front forks as low as possible and raised the ride height of the shocks to give it a bit more ground clearance. "It probably only got us a half inch or so, but that’s something," says Sharma. And because the Panigale's suspension is adjustable using the onboard computer, MotoCorsa was able to soften up the ride for running through the rough stuff by just poking around on the settings.
After that, they made a skid plate out of a stock 1199 exhaust to protect the undercarriage and the expensive Termignoni pipes, and coated the fairings and bodywork in military-style matte beige. Then it was time to tackle the trails.
Fire roads, dirt paths, open fields ... They made a perfect playground for the TerraCorsa. And according to Sharma, it handled it all surprisingly well. "We were in the middle of nowhere with no excuses. There’s nowhere we went that the Panigale didn’t just go right along with us. It was super impressive."
Even more impressive is the fact that Sharma says it won't take much to convert the 1199 back to its original spec. "Now, we’re just going to put the bike back into track form, and I’ll be [at] a track day on it down at Thunderhill next month."
The video below gives you a brief taste of the action, including the world's greatest motorcycle park job.
