Finally a Scrambler-style bike you could take off road, if you’re brave enough.

You can’t have failed to notice the wider world of motorcycling has gone mad for the ‘scrambler’ look. A custom-style bike that apes back to the 1960s and early 1970s when dirt bike racers were little more than stripped-down lightweight road bikes with knobbly tyres.

Just about every manufacturer is making Scrambler-type bikes – from Triumph and its Steve McQueen-inspired Scrambler model to MotoGuzzi and even road bike kings Ducati. Except all of them would either fall apart, get stuck or pummel you to bits if you tried some proper off-road on them. Not that it would worry their hipster riders in McQueen Belstaff jackets and open-face lids on their way across town for a flat white.

Well, step forward custom bike builders Anvil from Parma in Italy, who have taken Ducati’s V-twin Scrambler and really stripped it down so it actually looks like it would be reasonably capable off road. Well, apart from the metal studs in the tyres, maybe!

The Ducati Scrambler R/T Special takes its style cues from when Ducati actually made a competitive off-road bike in the 1970s.

The two-man Anvil crew started with the lightest Ducati Scrambler, the 400cc Sixty2 model which stock puts out 41bhp. They then changed everything but the engine and main frame.

“We wanted to pay homage to this glorious Ducati by giving it a modern twist as if today’s motocross world had lurched sideways and by bringing some of the styling traits of the seventies into the present day,” Anvil said.

The fuel tank has the original shape of the 1970s model, while California desert racer style of the 1970s inspired the handlebars and seat trimmed in cow hide.

“The Scrambler Special R/T carries the number 53 because”, explains Anvil Motociclette, “that’s the number of days it took us to customise it!”

First published – MotoHead Issue 3 – February 2017