Just to clarify, this wasn't intended as a review. The Drive did a separate review of the Scrambler; this was meant as an op-ed specifically aimed at the (ill-advised) marketing efforts of the Scrambler in general, the SixtyTwo specifically. I love street food like no other, but I don't think it has any place in trying to sell you a motorcycle. I think the ultra-hipster focus may actually do a disservice to potential Ducati Scrambler buyers.
Scrambler Sixty2 Review
Normally, I try to condense the message and then provide a link so you can read more, but this one needs to be read, in it's entirety.
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Ducati’s Scrambler Sixty2 Will Give You Butterflies, But Its Hipster Marketing May Make You Puke
Nicolas Stecher
The Drive
April 27, 2016
According to whichever New York marketing agency Ducati hired to launch its Scrambler brand, if you are considering said motorcycle it follows that you are a young man of exacting taste. You spend weekends riding across sweeping Baja dunes, gritting your teeth against the sand, while by night you sip craft bourbon at a crackling campfire as a voluptuous female silhouette bends over in the distance.
You favor buffalo plaid, fulsome facial hair experiments, and meticulously frayed designer jeans. Your eclectic—but well-considered!—tattoo collection would certainly be endorsed as a "DO" by VICE magazine. Your life, in other words, is one long Steve McQueen reverie as seen through vintage-inspired Warby Parker goggles; you have achieved Silver Lake Nirvana.
But here's the thing: despite the image Ducati desperately wants to sell you, a motorcycle is not some sort of antidote for disintegrating self-identity, or a panacea for the doldrums of cubicle living. A motorcycle is a machine—one of the purest, most utilitarian machines left on the modern market, second only to a chainsaw, or maybe a nail gun.
Sure, all marketing is based on the appropriation of identity, but Ducati doesn’t have to lean so heavily on those wispy illusions when promoting their new Scrambler Sixty2. Especially because the Sixty2 happens to be so damn good.
Ducati’s Scrambler, which they debuted not just as a motorcycle but as a standalone sub-brand last year, was constructed with the focused goal of adding an entirely new demographic to their sales. Ducati is mostly known for exceptional Italian-built steeds of pure speed and mouthwatering design; its halo Panigale superbike is a 200-mph, petrol-fueled sculpture, with the sort of Bologna-bred beauty that makes grown men teary-eyed and weak in the knees. But the company needed a motorcycle that could usher in a new age of Ducatisti, a bike that riders just getting into the two-wheeled lifestyle could embrace without fear of squandering their mortgage. By all measures, and as one of the most highly-lauded motorcycles of 2015, the Scrambler Icon achieved this very goal.
The rest here: Ducati’s Scrambler Sixty2 Will Give You Butterflies, But Its Hipster Marketing May Make You Puke
Seriously, go read it.
Ducati’s Scrambler Sixty2 Will Give You Butterflies, But Its Hipster Marketing May Make You Puke
Nicolas Stecher
The Drive
April 27, 2016
According to whichever New York marketing agency Ducati hired to launch its Scrambler brand, if you are considering said motorcycle it follows that you are a young man of exacting taste. You spend weekends riding across sweeping Baja dunes, gritting your teeth against the sand, while by night you sip craft bourbon at a crackling campfire as a voluptuous female silhouette bends over in the distance.
You favor buffalo plaid, fulsome facial hair experiments, and meticulously frayed designer jeans. Your eclectic—but well-considered!—tattoo collection would certainly be endorsed as a "DO" by VICE magazine. Your life, in other words, is one long Steve McQueen reverie as seen through vintage-inspired Warby Parker goggles; you have achieved Silver Lake Nirvana.
But here's the thing: despite the image Ducati desperately wants to sell you, a motorcycle is not some sort of antidote for disintegrating self-identity, or a panacea for the doldrums of cubicle living. A motorcycle is a machine—one of the purest, most utilitarian machines left on the modern market, second only to a chainsaw, or maybe a nail gun.
Sure, all marketing is based on the appropriation of identity, but Ducati doesn’t have to lean so heavily on those wispy illusions when promoting their new Scrambler Sixty2. Especially because the Sixty2 happens to be so damn good.
Ducati’s Scrambler, which they debuted not just as a motorcycle but as a standalone sub-brand last year, was constructed with the focused goal of adding an entirely new demographic to their sales. Ducati is mostly known for exceptional Italian-built steeds of pure speed and mouthwatering design; its halo Panigale superbike is a 200-mph, petrol-fueled sculpture, with the sort of Bologna-bred beauty that makes grown men teary-eyed and weak in the knees. But the company needed a motorcycle that could usher in a new age of Ducatisti, a bike that riders just getting into the two-wheeled lifestyle could embrace without fear of squandering their mortgage. By all measures, and as one of the most highly-lauded motorcycles of 2015, the Scrambler Icon achieved this very goal.
The rest here: Ducati’s Scrambler Sixty2 Will Give You Butterflies, But Its Hipster Marketing May Make You Puke
Seriously, go read it.
