Ducati 500 GTL

I was flicking though one of my old copies of Motociclismo, this one from April 1976, and saw this ad for  the parallel twin Ducati GTL 500. It reminded me of being at an autojumble in Italy with my mate Adam, about 16 years ago. There were a couple of blokes, from Naples I think from their accent, and they had one of these Ducatis they were trying to sell. They had started it up, and revving it, and it sounded, and looked good. I can't remember how much they wanted exactly, but it was about 300/400pounds, so not much. We stopped and looked, but said to each other, naah, who wants a Ducati parallel twin? In fact, no one did, because at the end of the day, they still had, and couldn't give it away.

I look at it now, and it's an interesting machine, and I reckon it has aged reasonably well, despite the Giugaro type square bits. It came from a time when Ducati were still able to experiment with engine configurations before sticking for good on the vee twin path. But this one didn't work. Weak crankshafts and low power blighted the motor - luckily Taglioni had had nothing to do with it.

I wonder how many are still around. It'd be interesting to ride one. Anyone out there got any experience of one?