1971 DUCATI SCRAMBLER 450 R/T

Last year, Ducati launched the Scrambler. Available in four model variants, the 803cc, 75hp bikes have been a rip-roaring success for the Italian manufacturer, becoming the company’s best-selling product.

The company describes the Scrambler as having ‘post-heritage design which gives a contemporary take on the iconic bike built by Ducati in the 70s. This Ducati Scrambler, though, is not a retro bike: it is, rather, intended to be just how the legendary motorcycle would be today if Ducati had never stopped building it’.

That ‘legendary motorcycle’, the original Scrambler, was built during the boom of motocross racing in the late ’60s and early ’70s and, during its more than 10-year production run, the Scrambler series included various models built for road and off-road riding with engine sizes running from 125 to 450cc.

As with its modern descendent, the original Scramblers were extremely popular. However, after more than 40 years, a number of the models are now quite rare.

One of those is the Scrambler 450 R/T, the race-spec version of the standard road bike.

In Australia, you can, perhaps, count the number of these bikes left using the fingers of just one hand. And one of those is owned by Brett Mutton from the Brisbane Motorcycles dealership group.

“It’s a motocross bike, that’s what is special about it,” says Brett.

“There was a road-registered version and then there was the dirt bike version and I don’t believe there are many of them left. I’ve been led to believe that there may be only three left in Australia. They are pretty rare.

“I got the bike from a mate of mine in Melbourne. It was in a million bits but we re-built it, painted it and got it to the stage it is now, which is pretty much 90 per cent original.

“The rear guard, the front guard, the frame, tank, motor – which we rebuilt – and wheels are all original, as is the exhaust. I think the rear shocks have been changed. They came with the bike but I don’t think they’re original. I also had to buy the side panels, reproduce the seat and make some manifolds for the carburettor. Also, the handlebars are not original. I do have the original ones, but I got a bit lazy and haven’t put them on yet!

“The paint is the original colour and we had that work done by a company called Street Elite restorations. They’ve done a couple of things for me, including my Monaro, and their work is really very good.”

Brett, whose Brisbane Motorcycles Caboolture shop was named Honda Motorcycles Australia National Dealer of the Year last year, has been involved with motorcycles pretty much his entire life – including a stint racing bikes during the 1980s – and, when you consider his family’s history, it’s no surprise that he’s a fan of two-wheeled transport.

“My grandfather was a factory rider for Royal Enfield in the UK back in the 1920s,” he says. “My son did a couple of years racing in the British Superbikes and when we were over there we went to see the library at Redditch (the town where Royal Enfield was based) and researched our family’s history. It was very interesting. My grandfather worked and raced for them, including riding in the Isle of Man TT a couple of times. His brother, Tommy Mutton, worked for Velocette and was Stanley Woods’ (a multi-TT winner in the 1920s and 30s) mechanic back in the day.”

The Ducati Scrambler doesn’t go back quite that far and, though the 1971 classic is undoubtedly a better bike than those of the 1920s, Brett confesses that it isn’t quite up to the standard of today’s modern machines.

“I’ve taken it out and, to be honest, it rides like an old motorbike!” he says. “It’s like having an old car – they don’t drive nicely either. For instance, my HQ Monaro certainly doesn’t drive like my Audi!”

With its days on the road or dirt track firmly behind it, the Scrambler has found a home at Brett’s Brisbane dealership, adding a dash of the ‘unusual’ to a shop teeming with the shining modern masterpieces from Honda, Suzuki and Ducati.

“We have used it for a bit of promotional work,” says Brett. “And people do come and have a look at it and ask ‘What’s that?’. It is a pretty cool thing.”

And it joins a number of other ‘cool’ bikes and cars that Brett has collected over the years, including a couple of late ’60s Honda mini-trails, a Yamaha TZ250B, a 1940s vintage Royal Enfield and a TZ350 which, says Brett, was Australian former road-racing champion Glen Middlemiss’s old bike and has three Australian championships to its credit. As for cars, he owns a fully-restored HQ GTS Monaro, and is currently restoring an XU-1 Torana.

But after years of collecting and restoring these classics, it would seem the Torana might just put the brakes, at least for a while, on any future restoration projects.

“I’m just about over restorations. They cost a lot of money!” says Brett with a grin. “I have wanted an XU-1 since I was about 18 and this one is now three years into its restoration and has a brand new motor, brakes, diff and gearbox. It is costing a fortune but I am really looking forward to driving it!”

Though restorations may be out of the picture, there is one more car Brett has his eye on to buy.

“My dad had a 1962 Hillman Super Minx which was in our family for a long time before it went to my mother’s cousin,” he says. “He restored it and it actually had a cameo role in the movie The Sapphires.

“I’m going to buy that back and drive it back here from Melbourne. My dad always used to say ‘My Hillman could  drive to Queensland standing on its head’. Well, we’re going to find out!”