Since 2011, right around the Italian MotoGP race, Tudor and Ducati have embarked on an intimate partnership, both in terms of product and cooperation. The Swiss watch brand has been the official timekeeper for Ducati since 2011 and Ducati colours have appeared on Tudor’s Fastrider series of watches. In turn, the two have collaborated on an exclusive motorbike, the Diavel Carbon, a stunning, sleek sexy beast that evokes, in Tudor creative director Davide Cerrato’s words, “authentic, sensual, virile and high-performance”. Clad in black leather and black carbon with a hint of a red trim, there’s little doubt that the Diavel is virile, at just over 150 kilos with 162 horses. It will have you going from zilch to police siren speeds in just a few seconds.
The partnership between watch and bike brands are few and far between, and none so permanent as the Tudor-Ducati one, going on its fifth year steadily. The two share a common year of founding (1926) as well as the first released products on the market in 1946, and next year marks their 90th anniversary. But in the last couple of years, the duo have been creating amazing products together, such as the Fastrider Black Shield chronograph, which was introduced in 2013 with the launch of the Ducati Diavel Carbon by Tudor. The ceramic watch was the first for the watch firm and clad in all-black, as sexy as the Diavel in Carbon.
Tudor and Ducati had in fact explored the possibility of a collaboration as early as 2009, but the deepening financial crisis at the point kept them pursuing it until 2011. Tudor CEO Philippe Peverelli paid a visit to the Ducati factory and that sealed his conviction. “It was the passion and conviction of the Ducati company that convinced us to work with them,” he explained back in 2011.
We’ve gotten our hands on a video interview with Davide Cerrato and Andrea Ferraresi, the design director of Ducati, where they speak about both the watch and the bike, the choices of colours and materials used, style, design, aesthetics and how the two companies are infinitely compatible, not merely on a marketing level but down to their roots and DNA.
As Gabriele Del Torchio, CEO of Ducati explained, ““Like Tudor, Ducati greatly respects and appreciates performance and an obsession with quality, combined with a stylistic flair that both companies have. For Ducati fans, it is a great item to acquire; you can’t go to bed with a Ducati motorbike, but you can certainly hit the sack with this watch! And for those who aspire to acquire a Ducati, but isn’t ready to buy a superbike yet, the Tudor Fastrider is an excellent way to associate yourself and express your passion for both companies.”