There's a story I wrote about the Ducati Panigale V4 for Playboy that still lives on Ducati's own site. And, honestly, I still can't believe it was printed. Even for Playboy, it was unhinged. Fun as hell to write, fun as hell to do, but absolutely and totally unhinged. I recommend you not read it on a work device.
But the essence of the article was one born by the very motorcycle itself, and most importantly, one born due to that freakin' banger of an engine: the V4.
It is, hand on heart, one of the most special engines ever to be devised. It growls upon startup, and goes full-on feral yowl as you climb through its rev range. It's an engine that makes you spontaneously succumb to tourettes, your mouth and mind unable to provide anything but expletives and kinky things that would find you in HR's office faster than the Panigale's 0-60 race.
Even thinking about it now, I shiver from the sound that motor makes as it screams toward the heavens of its limits. Yet, the engineering of the V4 is oh-so-much more than just how it sounds. No, Ducati put its entire ass into the creation of the V4, as explained by Engineering Explained's Jason Fenske.
For those who haven't put on Engineering Explained before and zoned out on the engineering nerdery that Fenske's so good at, you're in for a treat. The man, myth, and legend—and I'm speaking about Fenske's whiteboards, not Jason himself—is one of those science and engineering educators who just know how to break down complex thoughts and ideas into easy-to-understand English for mere mortals that just want to blip the throttle and pull a wheelie, i.e., a neanderthal like myself.
The video's conceit is how Ducati, along with the other sportbike manufacturers, have somehow eclipsed the horsepower wars of the modern supercar and hypercars, and done so by extracting insane power figures out of engines the size of a liter of pop. Indeed, the main point of comparison Fenske uses is Honda's legendary F20C engine out of the S2000, but he shows that Ducati is getting double the horsepower out of half the displacement.
He then compares the Ducati V4 to Gordon Murray and Cosworth's proprietarly insane 4.0-liter V12 in the T.50, and shows that, like the S2000 motor, the V4 is still making nearly 100 horsepower more per liter than even the best naturally aspirated supercar motor on the planet. Woof. And while the T.50 does have a little more torque per liter, that's more to do with the Ducati's higher redline. Yeah, it will scream far more than the race-bred Cosworth engine.
Again, the V4 is a masterpiece of engineering, and the whole 13-minute video is worth your time, as Fenske breaks down the V4's design far better than even I can. I mean, I'm just a guy with a throttle tattoo on my hand. He has an engineering degree. So sit back, grab some coffee, and watch Fenske nerd out.
I'll just be here daydreaming about the V4 again.
