A rare vintage image of Fabio Taglioni (right) with a young Massimo Bordi, at the time one of “Doctor T”'s most promising apprentices.
No one can think of Ducati motorcycles without recognising the mark Fabio Taglioni left on each project he was involved with. Even now, both the road series and the racing motorcycles employ concepts and ideas developed by this renowned engineer from Lugo.
Fabio Taglioni was born at Lugo di Romagna on September 10, 1920. His father, Biagio, had a small workshop where Fabio learned the rudiments of mechanical engineering. It was in this very workshop that Taglioni first met Enzo Ferrari and Tazio Nuvolari. During the war he met and married his wife Norina, who now conserves the memory of the immortal “Doctor T”.
Wounded during the war, he returned home in 1949 and immediately started working with the Ceccato motorcycle company. In 1950 he was taken on by Mondial, where he worked until 1954.
That was the year that Giuseppe Montano, Managing Director of the newly established Ducati Meccanica, took the decision to create a new team of designers and engineers to develop race bikes, with the aim of subsequently using race technologies in series production motorcycles. His choice fell on Taglioni. At that time Ducati was not a leader in the motorcycle industry and it was essential for the company to make its mark in races and win the respect of the public.
In six months, and without drawing a salary, Taglioni developed the first true Ducati race bike, the Gran Sport Marianna, which went on to win the Motogiro d’Italia and the Milano - Taranto in 1955, 1956 and 1957.
In those early years Taglioni also developed the first desmodromic motorcycle engine, which led to Ducati’s success in both road and track races.
It is impossible to list all of Fabio Taglioni’s achievements over his thirty-year long career with Ducati. Suffice it to say that the technology used on today’s Ducati road and race bikes is derived from projects developed by Taglioni and his two faithful disciples, Gianluigi Mengoli and Massimo Bordi. From the trestle frame to the desmodromic system, from the two-cylinder engine to the bevel gear pair and chain timing system – Ducati’s technological heritage is firmly based on the work of Fabio Taglioni.
Now, three years after his death on July 18, 2001, the innovative spirit of “Doctor T” is still flourishing in the form of the most advanced Ducati ever, the Desmosedici.
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