Provenance is one of those difficult-to-define qualities that can increase the value of an object by astonishing multiples. As difficult as provenance might be to define, this limited edition "scooter" has it in massive abundance, drawing from almost every aspect of Italian motorcycle culture, innovation and history.
The bike is essentially an Italjet Dragster 200 "special edition," complete with a set of MotoGP-style forward winglets and a further set of "Stegosaurus" style wings behind the rider's seat, reminiscent of the baffling design pioneered by Ducati in 2002.
This wild scooter has been put together in collaboration with Faenza-based Gresini Racing, the Italian team that competes in MotoGP (the highest level of motorcycle road racing) with year-old Desmosedici Ducati machinery piloted by the Márquez brothers, Marc and Alex.
Álex Márquez has won two world titles (2014 Moto3 & 2019 Moto2) but it is Marc Márquez that is the headline act, as Marc is a contender for the best of all time and as the 2025 signings now show (Márquez will race for the Ducati Corse factory team in 2025), Gresini Racing has played a pivotal in his career. The Gresini Italjet Replica is currently just a momento of an as-yet-unfinished campaign but it captures the essence of what promises to become one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history.
The Gresini "family"
Gresini Racing was started by two-time World 125 champion Fausto Gresini, an Italian motorcycle racer who became a team owner upon his retirement, ultimately spending his entire adult life as a member of the MotoGP circus. Fausto shares the record (with Ángel Nieto) for the most consecutive Grand Prix victories – an amazing 11 consecutive victories in the 125 class across the 1986 and 1987 seasons.
Gresini Racing began fielding teams in the smaller capacity classes initially, and has now been fielding two riders in the MotoGP class for a quarter century, plus the next two tiers, being Moto2 and Moto3 (and predecessors). It's a family business that has made a habit of nurturing young talent to championship success.
When Fausto died during the COVID-19 pandemic, his widow Nadia took over the team and she has more than done him proud since then, with the Gresini star still on the ascension.
In addition to pulling off the coup signing of the century in giving Marc Marquez the opportunity to get hold of a competitive bike, Gresini has also been the staging post for all the players that were hoping to land the second Ducati Corsa 2025 MotoGP seat next season. Incumbent Enea Bastianini went from Gresini to the Ducati factory team, and Jorge Martin is also Gresini alumni.
On top of that, the innovative thinking that is now being rolled out by Gresini suggests it is perhaps just as comms-savvy as the Ducati Media Department (a benchmark for excellence) – instead of the Gresini Italjet replica being announced (it was just shown outside the hospitality suite with no information), the company announced instead a crowd-funding sponsorship scheme that offers enough benefits to be successful. It's the first such motorsports team to do so and gathering your biggest supporters and fans together makes infinite sense.
When Marc Marquez held his first press conference after signing with Ducati Corse for 2025, he said: “From the first conversations I made it clear, to be in a satellite team I would stay with Gresini, which is the family that has given me the opportunity to rejuvenate. The most important thing in a negotiation, whatever the type, is to be sincere and not change your idea [mind].”
His choice of the word "family" is telling, because the Gresini family is now legion in size.
Riders other than those already mentioned who have spent a year or more in the Gresini family include Fabio Di Giannantonio, Alex Barros, Loris Capirossi, Daijiro Kato, Colin Edwards, Marco Melandri, Sete Gibernau, Toni Elías, Marco Simoncelli, Alvaro Bautista, Scott Redding, Stefan Bradl, Sam Lowes, Aleix Espargaro, Andrea Ianonne ... plus a few dozen more names you might recognize too.
The Dragster Design is one of history's finest
Most motorcycle replicas are very similar roadgoing versions of the original, so when it was announced that there would be a Gresini Edition of Italjet's second-generation Dragster, in Gresini colours, many people wondered out loud as to the rationale behind making a replica out of a glorified "scooter."
The Italjet Dragster is a lightweight high performance motorcycle that has its motor mounted on the rear swing-arm, which along with its (initial in 1996) 50cc engine capacity, saw it conveniently classified as a scooter by almost everyone.
Some people saw it for what it was though – beneath the bodywork, it was an engineering masterpiece that provided a relatively low cost urban sports bike that could deliver metropolitan point-to-point times second to none.
The bike was an instant success, and Italjet did a special edition of the Dragster 50 LC with the Williams F1 team in 1996. Williams drivers Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve both had Italjet pit bikes during 1996. One thousand units were snapped up by the public as soon as it went on sale – one can imagine that a similar or greater production number should be considered for this bike because it is a true gem, and Gresini's media department is savvy, it has the world's attention and it has a superstar shaping up to make history. Soufflés do not rise twice.
Perhaps the most convincing celebrity endorsement case for the Dragster is that for many years it was the day-to-day bike of the doyen of motorcycle testers, Sir Alan Cathcart. It served Cathcart on a daily basis for a lengthy period, and went with him on his motorhome treks to racetracks and factories across Europe.
The one guy who has tested everything and could have anything he desired, chose to purchase an Italjet Dragster 180 as his all-purpose motorcycle! It got stolen in the end, but it gave good service.
The Dragster's ultimate accolade came in 1998 when "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition opened at the Guggenheim Museum on 26 June 1998 and the Italjet Formula 50 LC was named among the 95 most significant motorcycles in history. That's quite some feat, as the motorcycles it keeps company with on that hallowed list are all fabled beasts.
The Dragster is a miniature Bimota Tesi
Technically, the Italjet Dragster might be a scooter, but it's lightweight design based around a lightweight rigid trellis frame and completed with high-quality suspension, steering and brakes is remarkably similar to another school of motorcycle design that has a strong Italian flavor – Bimota's Tesi and the modern incarnations of the concept such as the Vyrus.
The Bimota Tesi first broke cover in 1983, and has had numerous models based around the same architecture over the last 40 years, with Vyrus taking up the basic concept in 2001.
The single biggest benefit of the Italjet Dragster is that it handles well at speeds above 100 km/h (62 mph) when other scooters get a tad twitchy. At speeds below 100 km/h, it handles and stops better than other scooters too, though the highlights at urban speeds becomes its light weight, low speed acceleration and a low center of gravity that handles metropolitan environments well enough for the 200cc version to claim the name, "the urban superbike."
The Dragster was designed in 1995 by Italjet founder Leopoldo Tartarini, a former Ducati factory rider who started Italjet with a vision: "to create innovative vehicles driven by his personal intuition, all characterized by great attention to mechanical sophistication, distinctive style and design."
As Tartarini developed his own company, he continued to work closely with Ducati, designing a number of famous Ducati models, including the 1971 750 Sport and the green-frame 750SS street version of Paul Smart’s 1972 Imola 200-winning factory racer – now one of the most desirable motorcycles in the world.
Tartarini's greatest accomplishment is not the "Green Frame" Ducati 750 SS, but the Dragster. One of the many advantages of a motorcycle compared to a car, is that the good bits are on the outside, and the Italjet Dragster's wealth of mechanical innovation is on display at all times.
The Italjet Dragster arrests your attention the moment you lay eyes on it, and the only reason it should not be in a Museum of Modern Art is its working-class price tag of just US$5,000.
The Gresini Dragster has not yet had its price tag or production run announced, though neither can be expected to curtail the rush. If Marc Marquez can retain his health for the next five years, he can be expected to rewrite the record books.
Our advice is to go to your nearest Italjet dealer and make a deposit. Supply will be limited, and demand will greatly exceed supply!
