Since the Streetfighter 1098 was dropped by Ducati in 2015, the only powerful naked bike in its lineup was the Monster 1200. The arrival of the new V4 engine offers a prime opportunity to reclaim top honors in the class, and now the Italians have revealed a prototype Streetfighter V4 to debut at the 2019 Pikes Peak Hill Climb.
When Ducati rolled out the Panigale V4 superbike last year, several supposedly well-informed sources suggested that a naked version was in the pipeline too. The fire picked up a few months ago when the Italians entered an unspecified V4 for the 2019 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), where sportbikes originally equipped with clip-on controls are banned for safety reasons. It couldn't be anything other than the rumored naked version of the superbike and it was confirmed soon after, when the bike was spotted testing for the race.
Ducati is indeed reviving the Streetfighter, this time built around the Desmosedici Stradale V4 engine. The 1,103 cc road-legal version of Ducati's new motor powers the Panigale V4 and V4 S series with a stunning output of 214 hp (157.5 kW), and that's just the base regime.
The 998 cc racing version of this engine in the V4 R produces 221 hp and goes up to 234 with an Akrapovic racing exhaust system. If any customer can do this with a simple add-on off the shelf, imagine what a proper racing team can get out of this powerhouse. In fact, World Superbike fans already know that Alvaro Bautista on the factory Panigale V4 R has been ruining the competition consistently since the championship took off last February, winning most of the six triple-race events until now by vast margins.
Ducati hasn't released any technical information on the new bike, other than confirming which engine it bears and setting a formal unveiling date as a 2020 production model at the EICMA show in Milan, in November.
