Ducati 748 Café Racer "L'olandese volante" by Mark Fransdonk - MotoMatter
Ducati 748 Café Racer “L’olandese volante” by Mark Fransdonk

You do not see that much people using quite new types of motorycles for a Café Racer project, but Mark didn’t choose that “usual” Honda CB or Yamaha XS for his project, but started building on a Ducati 748 Café Racer.

Mark started by buying a 1996 Ducati 748 (well, some parts of it) and a 2001 engine. From this moment on, he to continued his search for the remaining parts he needed for this Ducati Café Racer, aka “L’olandese volante”, the Flying Dutchman.

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It’s like a puzzle
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Mark found a nice 748 frame for the bike
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The electronics. Hmm I love spaghetti

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Soon, Mark build his first mockup and included some megatone mufflers.
Looks pretty nice already!

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So, let’s start with the cafe racer seat and subframe

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Glass fiber time!
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Putting a base coat on the fuel tank
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Putting it together
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Meanwhile Mark started with polising the yokes and forks. 

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Also an exhaust needed to be made. Before:
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After. The pipes will be painted black & heat wrapped lateron.

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Putting the front end together and added a headlight (+ mounts)
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Looks pretty sharp, doesn’t it?
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So, where were we on the subframe?

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Nice and simple subframe made of steel.
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Testing if the seat will fit. Yup, it does.
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Fixing the cafe racer seat mounts

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Making a seat and undertray/tail from scratch
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Some fresh wheels
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The engine was still pretty dirty and needed an extreme make-over
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Cleaning the engine
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Added an open clutch cover for the real Ducati ringeling sound
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Painted the belt covers and some other details
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Mark also painted his frame blue… let’s see how this will turn out!
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Some extra attention to the design
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Spicing up the “cockpit”
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There you go, a real bike!
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Aarrggh, a paint error… (Look closely to see it)
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Mark didn’t give up, and here is the result!

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However, Mark wasn’t that happy with the seat, so he changed it!

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The tank as well!

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Once again a fresh paint job

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Yeah, that’s more like it!

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A final touch; a new suede seat!

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Sit back and enjoy this beauty!

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Wow, Mark has made a killer Café Racer from just a pile of Ducati parts and we are very glad that we could share it with you!

The Ducati 748 was a Ducati sport bike made from 1994 to 2002. The 748 was the smaller version of the 916, and was succeeded in 2003 by the 749. There was also a similar model, the 996, which was a higher horsepower model.

Ducati produced several variations of the 748, starting with the basic 748 Biposto (meaning “twin seat”) in 1994 and then the 1995–96 748SP and 1996–99 748SPS followed as more powerful options. The different variations of the engine (weighing close to 120 pounds each) produced at least 95 Horse Power. The SP and SPS engines were in a higher state of tune and also came only as Monoposto (meaning “single seat”), although it was possible to order the base 748 with a monoposto option, and were intended as homologation machines for World Supersport racing. Other extras over the base model included Ohlins rear shock and fully floating cast-iron Brembo brake disks. The engines also came with an oil cooler. Source: Wikipedia

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