Ducati's first desmo V-twin engine was the air-cooled SOHC bevel-drive design that powered Paul Smart to victory in its competition debut at the 1972 Imola 200 and Mike Hailwood to his legendary comeback win in the 1978 Isle of Man TT. Replaced by the belt-driven SOHC Pantah motor, it disappeared in the early 1980s. Since that time parts for the thousands of bikes built with this engine have essentially dried up.
Vee Two Australia, a small company located south of Perth in Western Australia, has addressed this by developing a brand-new air-cooled bevel-drive desmo V-twin engine. The Vee Two Ritorno (Italian for “comeback”) Twin measures 88mm x 74.4mm for a capacity of 904cc, and Vee Two claims that in racing form the engine will deliver around 120 hp and 63 pound-feet of torque.
The mill is an externally faithful reproduction of the factory NCR race engine used by Mike Hailwood to win the 1978 Isle of Man TT, with the crankcases and other major castings sandcast in high strength heat-treated aluminum, and the many external covers cast in magnesium. The best news? All of the new parts will be interchangeable with existing bevel-drive engines.
