The MONSTER SQUAD

The drop-dead gorgeous, British-built deBolex dB25 is a retromod racer with Italian underpinnings

- DUNCAN QUINN

I’ve been pondering the deBolex db25 for a while. Part monster, part beauty. Tyson Fury in Galliano. A deceptive combo for any café racer arriving fresh from 1960 after a bacon sarnie and roll-up cigarette at the Ace Café. Looks like a bubble café racer, just seamlessly executed—not banged together from the parts bin with a hammer and anvil in a garage near Wembley. And with all sorts of mechanical stuff that makes it look as if it came from the future. Plus enough power and torque to leave a Vincent Black Lightning looking like it came from the Dark Ages.

When I asked Calum Pryce-Tidd, founder of the UK’s deBolex Engineering, why on earth he’d start with what is to all intents and purposes the ultimate stock wheelie-bike, his answers made a lot of sense. After all, in stock form the Ducati Monster 1200S engine is a powerful and torquey 1198 cc L2 with 145 HP on tap and 91 lb.-ft. of torque. More than many a superbike, but wrapped in a short, stubby, urban hooligan outfit. Pryce-Tidd used build numbers 6 and 7 to explain to me how this works (only 25 will be built).

“Each model begins with a blank canvas: the dB25 in its raw form consisting of 22 carbon fiber panels, wrapped around the last of the trellis-framed Ducati Monster 1200s,” he expounds. “From there we play with paint and seat trim designs together with frame and engine upgrades to create a reflection of the owner’s vision.”