Ducati’s powerhouse supernaked, the Streetfighter V4 S, fits a new level of sportbike performance in a streetwise package

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Photos: Lionel Kong

SINGAPORE

It has more than 200hp from an engine straight out of MotoGP, enormous wings on the front, and enough electronics to fly a jumbo jet.*

On the angry-insect face of it, Ducati’s Streetfighter V4 S is an eye-whitening, sphincter-clencher of a performance motorcycle. One that normal people, or at least those who enjoy a life without constant neck pain, should stay far away from.

But in real life what the Streetfighter V4 (henceforth the SF) does better than almost any competitor, or Ducati bike for that matter, is deliver the performance and intensity of a sports bike in a package that is truly easy to live with day-to-day. 

*Not a Boeing 737 MAX with MCAS don’t worry.

Fight Club

First off, a very short primer: A ‘street fighter’ in the classical sense of motorcycling means a sportbike with most of its fairing gone, and its clip-ons replaced with high-rise handlebars, all the better for urban hooliganism.

Modern street fighters have refined the idea to make high-performance road bikes sans fairings, from Honda’s excellently smooth CB 1000 R to BMW’s headstrong S 1000 R. In contrast, a naked road bike like the Ducati Monster 821 or BMW F 900 R are generally acknowledged to be less sporty and more general purpose.

Ducati’s last Streetfighter (above) was in 2007 and four generations ago, derived from the Ducati 1098 superbike, and in the interim we’ve had the 1198, 1199, 1299, and current Panigale V4 sportsbikes, but no real SF until now. 

However the final presentation wasn’t the most polished, the peaky, race-bred V-twin engine that lacked low-end, and wasn’t very ‘streetable’ at all.

In that sense it was a true street fighter, simply a focused sportsbike with different clothes and a lot of Italian character for better or worse, mostly to the detriment of road riders who weren’t willing to fang it absolutely everywhere.

To put that into context, even Ducati’s current street-focused sportsbike, the Supersport, isn’t entirely shorn of a V-twin’s dislike of low-speeds. 

Core Values

That’s all gone out the window and the crux is the engine switch: The V4 changes everything you know about Ducatis, since it’s literally a cross between the familiar, easy characteristics of an inline four and the grunty, lumpy character of a V-twin

The 1,103cc V4 is carried over from the Panigale V4 with minor changes. It has 208hp down from 214hp, unique engine mapping and slightly lower gearing. 

But we suspect what will hook many is the fact that the SF sounds like a MotoGP bike. V4s are the engine layout of choice for that series, for numerous engineering reasons, and the spine-tingling, hollow drone-howl of a V4 is also the best-sounding of them all. 

For a modern bike the SF is ballsy and loud, and its downward-pointing exhaust makes it thunderous in carparks with low ceilings, but at a standstill you might wonder where the special V4 sound is.

That’s because the bike shuts off the rear cylinders when the bike is stopped, which is a godsend for Italian bike owners who have faced the very literal heat on their nether regions for many years. Another plus is that the tucked-away exhaust means nothing to foul your right foot, another Italian bike ‘signature’ we could have long lived without. 

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Continue to page 2: On the street

Return to page 1: Introduction

Dancing In The Street

Riding the SF in town is easy, and that in itself is an achievement for a 200hp Ducati. A comfortable rider triangle, light clutch and throttle, up-down quickshift, decently padded seat and no nut-roasting all contribute to that. In fact, it feels like it runs cooler than the BMW S 1000 R. 

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First gear is very tall, and can bring you to 90km/h halfway through the engine’s rev range, but aside from that, the V4 is all easy in urban environments. It’s smoothly fuelled and a real peach, not as finicky at low-revs like a V-twin. Even better, small throttle openings elicit no lurch or judder, which adds lots to rider confidence. 

A V4 layout really does seem perfect for motorcycles, combining the character of a V with the smoothness and rideability of an inline four. We’ll probably catch hell from both companies for saying this, but it almost seems like Ducati crossed a little Honda smoothness into the SF. 

At low speeds, the SF isn’t particularly nimble, which isn’t a surprise since it has a slightly longer wheelbase than the Panigale and a fat 200 section rear tyre, though full lock on the handlebars is generous. 

Rocking A Hard Pace

That sounds like almost a boring bike, but rest assured you shouldn’t buy a SF V4 to run errands around town because what it truly lives and breathes is speed. 

The SF is not so much a bike as it is a low-flying, mini-sonic boom maker. It goes without saying that the bike is fast, but keep in mind it has a better power to weight ratio than a Bugatti Veyron, rider included**

This thing is relentlessly quick, the power and revs of the engine almost bottomless in a place like Singapore. You don’t even need to drop a gear or two, just give it gas and it rockets forward while carpet bombing V4 noise the entire time.

It’s both glorious and ridiculous, and it becomes clear very quickly that the limiting factor to speed is you - or at least the strength of your neck muscles. The bike’s front end remains glued to the ground, perhaps the wings really do help but Ducati claims 28kg of downforce at 270km/h so we couldn’t tell for sure. But the chassis, like the engine, is hungry for velocity and very hard to fault at legal speeds.

Paradoxically, the SF’s power is prodigious but it isn’t brutal. It delivers its torque in a steady stream that’s almost refined, if you can ignore the holy howl of the V4 for a moment, there is no whiplash or jerks which make going fast extra tiring, it’s just pure, clean V4 thrust as long as you can stand it. 

**0.741hp/kg for the Bugatti, 0.785hp/kg for the Ducati at 199kg wet, with an additional 65kg rider onboard.

Exceptional Guile  

And then there’s the other side of things: The electronics and suspension. We rode the S model, which adds a S$10k premium over the base model, and gives you Marchesini forged wheels (lighter, stronger) as well as Ohlin’s electronically-controlled NIX 30 fork and TTX36 rear suspension, which is basically state-of-the-art for bike suspension tech now. 

The SF also packs a whole alphabet soup of electronic agents to stop you from high-siding, low-siding, losing it under braking, wheelie-ing into oblivion, and more. We won’t detail every single one of them, but the key takeaway is how natural it all feels, you don’t get that ‘slap of the wrist’ older or less refined systems dish out. To the average rider, the SF merely seems like an exceptionally well-behaved bike that just happens to have 200-plus horsepower and an awesome soundtrack.  

Naturally there are also modes to suit your riding mood - Race, Sport, Street - which is expected of all bikes nowadays, but the level of customisation is exceptional. You can tweak not just each of the electronic nannies, but also each suspension parameter of the fork or the shock, individually - brake dive, stiffness, steering damper and more. 

Because of this, you can set the SF up to go from hard-charging and sporty to relaxed and lazy even, since suspension is such a huge part of bike behaviour, and while some other bikes can do that in general terms, few can be tweaked with such a high level of customisation, and almost none without leaving the saddle. 

If the perfect bike isn’t the one you’re sitting on right now, then it’s probably hidden somewhere in the menus. And if going to racetracks is ever allowed again, you’d only need to lower the tyre pressures, punch it the settings, and that would be it for spannering. Like on the road, it simply leaves you more time to actually ride. 

Continue to page 3: Conclusion

Return to page 2: On the street

Conclusion

With an Italian street-fighter of the past decades, you’d be prepared to make mods, tune the engine and mapping to your liking, and spend to make an already spendy machine perfect. But not with the Streetfighter.

Ducati’s made big improvements to its build quality over the past decade-plus, and the proof is that the SF needs only cosmetic modifications. The parts are all top-shelf - like the triple-tree and handlebar clamps -  the wiring tidy and so on. Even the reliability has gotten better, and the service intervals much longer. 

Now, there’s only a hint of the awkward racebike-descended behaviour and ergonomics, the V4 engine is probably one of the best performance engines around and sounds great as well, and the SF can be anything from relaxed commuter to raging performance monster. Few bikes have as wide a range of performance. 

But it’s not 100 perfect of course. The slick 5.0-inch TFT display jiggles alarmingly over bumps, the lack of keyless is notable at this price, and not everyone is going to love the SF’s Joker-inspired face. The smallish 14-litre fuel tank will also drain in double-quick time, less than 200km, if you ride the SF like Borgo Panigale intended.

There’s also the question of much less expensive competition, anything from Yamaha’s MT-10 (MotoGP inspired engine too) to the KTM Super Duke 1290 R. The closest competitor is Aprilia’s Tuono V4 Factory, which has 175hp, a similarly thrilling V4 and Ohlins active suspension, at almost half the price of the Ducati, though less of the brand cred. 

But at S$71,900 OTR, we figure if you’re aiming for the Ducati, you probably haven’t anything else in mind, which is just as well. The Ducati Street Fighter V4 S is not cheap, but it’s the closest we’ve come to street-fighter perfection out of the box. 

Ducati Streetfighter V4 S

Engine	1,103cc, 16v, V4
Power	208hp at 12750rpm
Torque	123Nm at 11500rpm
Gearbox	6-speed manual with up-down quickshifter
0-100km/h	Not quoted but probably quite sick
Top Speed	At least 270km/h
Wet Weight	199kg
Seat Height	845mm
Agent	Ducati Singapore
Price	S$71,900 OTR*
Availability	Now
Verdict	Wonderfully loud, fast and dramatic, equally adept at all conditions and with a price tag to match

* Includes COE, Road Tax, but not insurance

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