Ducati Bevel Twins: 750GT, Sport and Sport S, 860GT, GTE, GTS, 900 SS, GTS, SD, SSD, MHR, S2, Mille 1971 to 1986 (The Essential Buyer's Guide)

Owning a variety of buyers guides from Roy Bacon and other authors, I had a certain expectation about what I was getting with this Ducati Bevel Twins Essential Buyers Guide. I already have Falloon’s “The Ducati 750 Bible” , but I was looking to supplement that with more detailed information – especially photos. The “Bible” book does have a lot of good information, but it’s not an easy read, and it’s certainly not up to the “Restoration Guide” level of other books available for other bikes. I don’t know if it’s a Left Brain - Right Brain thing or what, but coming from an IT background, I just find the “Bible” poorly organized. It’s all in there - somewhere - it might just take you two or three readings to sort it out. For example, there will be a new section starting on the 1974 750 GT “first series” bikes with two paragraphs, but then the next three pages are photos of the 750SS. On the fourth page the GT story continues - then switching to the 750 Sport for three paragraphs, and then back to the GT for two more sections. Someone who has a 1974 GT has to bop all over the chapter to read about it. And if you want to know what the fuse box in your 1974 should look like – well hopefully you noticed the photo in the 1973 section, the caption of which tells you that it was also used in 1974. Just don’t look in the Index for “fuse box”, because there are no references. Many other details are like this – most without benefit of a photo…. they’re buried in the text, in various chapters. As I said, many readings….But having said all this, I didn’t necessarily view the prospect of another Falloon book negatively, so I bought the Ducati “Essential Buyers Guide”, even though it had not been reviewed yet.For those who are already tired of reading - I have to say that I was disappointed by the Essential Buyers Guide… but it had nothing to do with content organization.My puzzlement started from the moment I opened the Amazon box. I had ordered the book along with one other item, and for a moment I thought that the book had been shipped separately, because I could not find it. But it was in there… under the folded invoice. You can’t tell by the Amazon photo, but this book is about the size of a TV Guide. Format aside, the real problem is that this book is not a Buyer’s Guide in the Roy Bacon et al sense of the word - it’s really a “buyers checklist”. There are a variety of these lists out there on the web in either generic or model-specific form, but basically the majority of this book is a part by part “what to do/look for before you buy” checklist. And even this would be fine, but this book tries to cover a larger variety of years & models than the 750 Bible does. It only accomplishes this by generalizing all the details. So if you want to know what type of side cover a specific model/year bike should have, as they say in Brooklyn, fergetaboutit. The section will tell you that some models use fiberglass and some use metal, but it does not tell you what was used where, or what ‘yours’ should look like. And this type of thing goes on and on through every detail on the bike. Someone on the verge of spending $5k on upwards of $100k for a bike will really have no idea if the machine they are looking at is ‘correct’ based on this book. So one has to ask, what then is the value of this book? To be fair, there are a lot of new photos here that are not in the “Bible”, but this is negated somewhat by the fact that you don’t know if the photo shown applies to the bike you are interested in. And even if it does - and you DO know - the format of this book only allows for thumbnail-sized photos.As a lover of almost all things with two wheels, it gives me no pleasure to say this, but anyone out there who is looking to really LEARN something about a specific Ducati twin before you buy one - you are better off buying a reprint of the parts manual for that bike, and supplementing that with one of the other books available - and just figure it out that way.

Over simplified

qualité et délai ok

Todo perfecto y a un precio estupendo llegó casi al final del plazo previsto pero mereció la pena la espera. El libro está muy bien, es muy completo y tiene información que me será muy útil.

This book is for someone not previously interested in bikes but now will make an investment in a valuable ducati for some reason.Dont compare it with any of Ians other excellent books.

Un buen libro de bolsillo de las ducati bicilindricas de los 70. Aunque imprescindible despues en casa los libros completos.