08 May dB25: The beginning
The moment has finally come, we’re deep into the production of our first series prototype. For the past few years we’ve spoken frequently about producing our motorcycles in higher numbers – anything more than one! – with a goal of retaining the same high quality finish and unique nature of our machines but making them more available in a quicker time frame and a more time efficient building process. Now, it did take us a while to complete our final one-off projects but were pleased to finally be designing the first parts and we wanted to share our progress with you.
Firstly, after a lot of back and forth about the name of the series, we’ve landed on – dB25 – which represents our name, and the limited run number of the series. You also may have noticed that our logo has changed. We’ve been working on this redesign for a while and consider it to be an evolution of both our brand and our business.
The dB25 is the first in a number of Limited Series to be developed by deBolex. Based on the Ducati Monster, the series is limited to 25 motorcycles.
Each motorcycle will be built sharing the same stand out design but with an extensive range of specifications and finishes to choose from, so no two will be the same.
The prototype, and subsequently the number 1 bike in the series, will be made from aluminium. These panels will then be turned into moulds to enable us to produce the remaining 24 bikes in carbon fibre. This is a unique process that captures the hand made design features of traditional metal shaping into a modern, lightweight and strong composite panels. This process also allows us to significantly speed up production, as an example the aluminium rear mudguard below took around 2 days to make, once we’ve created a mould for this it will take 1 hour to lay up in carbon fibre, which is then put in the oven overnight and in the morning we have a millimetre perfect replica of our hand made aluminium part but now in a lightweight and strong carbon fibre panel.
We made the decision to manufacture our carbon fibre parts in house to retain control of quality and efficiency during the build. We’ve now manufactured our first moulds and carbon fibre components with fantastic results. This has kickstarted the production of some of the smaller components for the first motorcycles in the dB25 series.
We’re now three months into the prototype build and we’re making great progress. After completing our first carbon fibre parts we turned to the rear subframe, after many weeks of working on this new design we will now 3D print our first prototype before refining the design and machining in aluminium.
While we wait for our prototype subframe to arrive we’ve been busy finalising the body work design and have begun shaping the first sheets of aluminium. This week we’ve seen the tail section begin to come to life along with the lower belly pan… but more on that soon!
Thank you for reading
Calum