Profile Photo
George Williams
94 articles

Ducati Panigale Racer, Tamiya 1/12

September 28, 2022 · in Automotive · · 23 · 1.1K

Browsing the internet one evening, as you do, I came across an after market set of transfers

to help turn 's road going kit

into a World Superbike Racer.

When the transfers arrived there were no instructions or maker's name, presumably to avoid copyright infringement.

Apart from the different markings the main modifications involved removing most of the items that make the bike road legal, headlight, mirrors, indicators, registration plate, and rear reflector. A minimal rear light was retained for racing in adverse weather conditions. The only addition was a guard for the throttle control on the RH handlebar.

I painted the bike in Tamiya Italian Red from the spray can, but it gave it an undercoat of bright yellow to try and make the red pop a little. It's hard to tell from the photographs if this made any difference.

The bike was raced in 2013 by Spaniard Carlos Checa. Although Carlos raced for most of the top Moto GP and World Superbike Teams, 2013 was not his best year, finishing a non-competitive thirteenth, thanks to my friend Allan Withers @kalamazoo for confirming this.

One point I wasn't sure of was which tyres these bikes raced on. It seems they usually race on slicks or wets depending on conditions. The kit comes with road tyres. Luckily my friend Spiros @fiveten found some pictures of the bike on road tyres, I suspect they are pre-season publicity pictures, but they were good enough.

I treated the bike to a gold coloured chain as per the pictures.

Here's another picture of the completed bike.

And some pictures of the build.

If you would like to know more about the build please have a look at the work in progress thread over in the automotive group.

Thanks also go to @john, @rory, and Erik @airbum for thei help and support during the build.

Thanks for looking and happy modelling.

Reader reactions:
7  Awesome

23 responses

  1. Looks great, George! Well done.

  2. An outstanding result, my friend George! Commonly with your builds, it is really hard to believe that I am looking at a scale model and not at the real thing.
    This is a wonderful Panigale!
    Your build thread was a joy to follow, not only in enjoying the progress of the build, but also in learning a lot.
    Keep them coming!

  3. Wow you've been a busy man lately. I could swear I saw one of those coming home from out east last month, at a gas station. Well, at least it was a Fancy Ducati of some sort. They do turn heads. Cool to see how close the street is to the race. Your build is excellent.

  4. Thank you, Bill @billkoppos, glad you enjoyed it.

  5. Another superb addition to your already impressive collection of bikes, George @chinesegeorge. Your build was a real pleasure to follow and learningful as well. Well done.

  6. Hey George another masterpiece...believe it or not a colleague of mine won one of the road going versions of this bike ,a real one that is not the kit in a raffle for a £20 ticket, he had one ride out on it because... well how could he not ? then punted it on to a Ducati dealer for £18,000

  7. Wow. Beautiful bike build George @chinesegeorge. I see you have plenty of motorcycle & auto builds. I'm also interested in those subjects but do not have any current plans to try my hand at modelling them anytime soon. But I do believe I'll have to try one of the Tamiya 1/12 kits one day..

  8. Thanks, DJ @juan2six, you’ve certainly built a great collection of tanks. I’m afraid the current situation in Ukraine has persuaded me to stop making any more military models, particularly Russian ones. I really enjoy the 1/12 scale motorbikes, and they don’t take up much display space.

  9. Like Spiros - @fiveten - says, it's hard not to believe your models aren't the real thing in a photo, the work is so realistic.

  10. Thanks, Tom @tcinla, you wouldn’t say that if you saw my feeble attempts at aircraft modelling.

  11. Great result of an iconic bike George... between your skills and the Tamiya kit, it looks like the real thing! Well done.

  12. Bellissimo, George.

  13. Never done one of these they look interesting

    You sure did a bang up job on this one

  14. Thanks, Mark @markh, looking forward to you trying one, there are lots to choose from.

  15. Brilliant build, George, I love the conversion to a racer, the decals look great. Love this idea.

  16. Thanks, Anthony @anthonyricco, much appreciated.

  17. That’s amazing mate!
    I love the potential for customisation with the bike kits.

Leave a Reply