My first bike was a 996. I had no business owning it as a 22 year old kid, so needless to say it was buried under a garbage truck on the lower east side within 9 months and I had a cool hole in my flesh to show off for it.

     A bunch of years and bikes later I was still obsessed with the classic 748/996 styling. Being an owner of a predominantly Ducati focused shop I slowly started to hoard parts. A scratched 1098 swing arm was left and never picked up by a client.  A Ducati performance dry slipper clutch was semi destroyed by another client, which was also never picked up after being replaced by a newer non-spider spring style one. And so on and so on.

     A friend was parting out his tracked 1198  and I thought it would be appropriate for me to buy the motor, electrical  along with other odds and ends. No plan of what to do with it. Finally one day while trolling craigslist, I found a nicely smashed up and parted out 1998 748 Frame, suspension, the most unwanted 3 spoked gold wheels from that era, some broken plastics, a good gas tank, and a couple of other random parts were buried in the corner when I went to look at it.  I believe I paid $600 for everything, I dragged the parts and added them to my now ever growing hoard pile, which was not getting me any love from the partners for taking up space in random corners of the shop. When arranging these parts to be more presentable, I put the 1198 engine on the 748 frame and realized all the engine mounts lined up perfectly. Motor mount bolt sizes were bigger on the engine, but that was easily solvable by over sizing the wholes in the frame.

     That’s it I thought, I am going to build a 748/1198 swap. Thinking I was super clever, I went on line to assure myself that this had previously not been done...well it had, or at least it was being done by TomTom, a member of Ducati MS forum.  He was on his final stages of the fitting the engine into a 996SPS. I wrote back and fourth to see what the hiccups he was encountering were and there were a few to say the least. So hats off to you Mr. TomTom for thinking of it first, and thank you for all the help during the brain storm days. 
     Winter of that year, the build began...engine and throttle bodies fitted in the frame, it was time to make one air box out of two using 1198 bottom piece and 748 top piece.  My apprentice and I got high off fumes for a few weeks learning how to work with fiberglass.  A fabricator friend Osso helped make a jig off of a 1198 frame in order to move the mounting points for the rear shock, since unlike TomTom I decided to make my life more complicated and use a 1198 swingarm.  Some mounting tabs on the frame had to be moved.  Slowly but surely it was a complete rolling chassis with all the electronic components installed. Then came the riding season, bike got pushed into storage and eventually even became a parts bike for a couple years.  
     Five years later I finally pulled it out again and pretty quickly realized I have stolen half of what I put together to get small jobs and other projects in the shop done. Going back to the hoarding status I robbed, borrowed and stole enough bits to get the project back to where it was a half decade ago.  I finally got it fired up that year and made it rideable all though it looked very bad.  Nothing was painted nor powder coated,  all the marks of the fabrications that went into the build were showing and the body work, all though carbon (since that was actually cheaper then buying OEM plastics) looked crappy next to the other imperfections.            Never the less, I got it registered and rode it for a season in that condition, so yes it runs and does it very well in fact. After sorting through a few problems, the machine worked.  It rode, turned, slowed down, and wheelied like proper Ducati.  Following off season it was stripped back down and sent out to to paint/powder coat and made to look presentable.

     Here is the finished product and though it looks stock it’s anything but that.