Between us, we own every model in Ducati's short lived but much missed Sport Classic range, so we're big fans of Ducati Cafe Racers here in the Shed. That's why this build by Alessandro Della Calce caught our collective eye. The starting point for this project was a Ducati Super Sport 600, a beautiful-looking, if slightly underpowered bike as standard. Obviously, the first job was to sort out the whole 'underpowered' thing. This was achieved by slotting in a 1994, 900 engine or as we've just learnt from Alessandro, a 'Pompone' (look it up on Wikipedia if you don't know). This more meaty power plant was degreased and repainted exactly as it was originally intended and the frame had to be adapted to suit. Alessandro wanted a two into one exhaust which he took from a crashed 996. It took a fair amount of work to get it to fit with the right hand side having to be shortened significantly. The same 996 donated the handlebars (can't have been too bad a crash then) and a Monster was raided for the forks, brakes and clutch. The footrests are the originals, but they were re-modeled to make them more streamlined and then repainted . It looks to us like a fair few things from the standard bike have been ditched to achieve the stripped back, cafe racer look. And the small Harley style headlight and taillight suit the new look perfectly. The drop-dead gorgeous paintwork deserves a whole paragraph all to itself. It was executed by Paolo De Martino Dianaman, and is a graphic airbrush painting of three-layer aluminum coarse and orange candy. The vintage Ducati logo looks the bomb too. It is one of the most luscious colour schemes we have ever seen in the shed, and puts all our standard Sport Classic tanks to shame. Alessandro says "Gaya" took a year from start to finish. A year of cutting, welding, greasing, oiling and polishing. But he adds that he's extremely proud of the end result, and wanted to give a special mention to his friend Luis Motion for providing the inspiration for this project and for being a great coach along the way. It takes a brave man to mess with the looks of an SS. We salute you Alessandro, your bravery has paid off.