Ducati Marks 100 Years With the Superleggera V4 Centenario

Ducati turns 100 in 2026, and the Bologna factory is not marking the occasion quietly. The centrepiece of its centenary celebrations is the Superleggera V4 Centenario, unveiled at the Circuit of the Americas round of the MotoGP world championship and billed as the most extreme road-legal motorcycle Ducati has ever built. It is a fitting way to close out 100 years: lighter, more powerful and more technologically advanced than anything that came before it.

The numbers are staggering

At the heart of the Centenario sits a new Stradale R 1100 V4 engine producing a homologated, Euro5+ compliant 224.9 bhp. Fit the optional racing kit and that climbs to 243.6 bhp, while the wet weight in road trim is a barely believable 173 kg, dropping to 167 kg with the race kit installed. Those figures put the Centenario in a category of one for a street-legal machine.

The weight comes from an obsessive use of carbon fibre. The Centenario uses a full carbon chassis, and crucially it debuts the first-ever road-legal carbon brake discs and carbon front fork tubes. This is technology that, until now, lived strictly in the MotoGP paddock.

Lighter than a 600, more powerful than almost anything on the road, and braked by carbon discs you can ride to the shops. The Centenario is a rolling statement.

A 500-unit collector's piece, already sold out

The Superleggera V4 Centenario is built in a strictly limited run of 500 numbered units, priced at $165,000. Alongside it sits the even rarer Superleggera V4 Centenario Tricolore, limited to 100 units at $250,000, each finished in a hand-painted livery inspired by the legendary 750 F1 #618 and Ducati's historic colours of victory.

Demand was, predictably, ferocious. Despite debuting in late March, all 600 units across both variants were sold out within weeks of pre-sales opening.

Part of a bigger celebration

The Centenario is the headline act, but it is not alone. Ducati's anniversary programme also includes the Collezione 100, a series of ten 2026 models wearing unique liveries inspired by key moments in the company's history, each version limited to 100 numbered units worldwide. The festivities build toward World Ducati Week 2026, the centenary gathering of the faithful.

For a company that started building radios in 1926 and only turned to motorcycles after the war, a 224.9 bhp carbon-braked superbike is quite the hundredth-birthday present. The Superleggera V4 Centenario is the kind of machine most of us will only ever see behind glass, but as a statement of where Ducati stands after a century, it could hardly be louder.