Ducati placed its 100-year design history at the centre of Autostyle Design Competition 2026, using the international event to connect its historic motorcycles with the limited-edition Superleggera V4 Centenario. The 22nd edition of Autostyle was held on 8 and 9 October at the Abbey of Polirone in San Benedetto Po, in Mantua, Italy. Organised by Berman S.p.A., the event brought together names from automotive design and related creative fields, with Ducati the only motorcycle manufacturer taking part.

Autostyle has operated for more than two decades as a meeting place for design centres from major vehicle manufacturers and companies in other industries. Ducati, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati are among the brands associated with the event, which is built around the exchange of experience, the presentation of new projects and discussion of current and future design directions. The programme also gives space to young designers through an international competition for projects created by students from schools and universities around the world.

Ducati used its centenary participation to show how the design of its motorcycles developed from 1926 to the present. Andrea Ferraresi, Ducati Strategy & Centro Stile Director, and Mirko Pocobello, Ducati Senior Designer, presented representative models from different stages of that evolution. Their account focused on the way Ducati’s visual language has changed over the decades while retaining the three values the company associates with its identity: Style, Sophistication and Performance.

The Superleggera as a design statement

The clearest modern expression of that approach at Autostyle was the Superleggera V4 Centenario. Ducati displayed the motorcycle together with its mechanical base, making the relationship between the finished form and the engineering beneath it part of the presentation. Rather than treating design as a separate layer applied to a motorcycle, the arrangement illustrated Ducati’s emphasis on combining appearance with function.

Ducati presented the Superleggera V4 Centenario in March 2026 and is producing it as a strictly limited series of 500 numbered examples. The company describes it as the most extreme road-legal motorcycle it has created. That positioning makes the machine more than a commemorative colour scheme: it is the contemporary showcase Ducati chose to represent the combination of design and engineering at the heart of its centenary message.

The motorcycle’s defining finish is the Rosso Centenario livery, created for Ducati’s 100th anniversary. Its influence extends beyond the limited road bike, since Ducati used the same centenary design direction as inspiration for the official liveries of the Desmosedici GP in MotoGP and the Panigale V4 R in Superbike. The presentation therefore linked the special-production motorcycle with Ducati’s current racing identity without separating either from the wider design story.

Engineering, style and the next generation

Ducati’s presence at Autostyle also underlined the company’s view that motorcycle design sits between technical development and visual expression. The manufacturer describes its design language as a combination of sophisticated engineering, carefully developed forms and Italian sporting style, with the aim of creating motorcycles that generate an emotional response. Showing the Superleggera beside its mechanical base gave that idea a physical form: the components and the bodywork were presented as parts of the same design process.

The event’s student competition added an educational dimension to Ducati’s centenary appearance. Alongside the discussion of models that define the company’s history, Autostyle recognised projects by students from institutions around the world. Ducati connects that emphasis on education with the future of design, placing its own established work in the same setting as ideas from designers who are still at the beginning of their careers.

Ducati’s design approach has received recognition over the years through awards including Italy’s Compasso d’Oro, the iF Design Award, the Red Dot Design Award and the Good Design Award. The latter is presented in the United States and is described by Ducati as one of the internationally recognised honours in design. Taken together, the exhibition, the design discussion and the Superleggera display presented the centenary not simply as a look back at Ducati’s past, but as an explanation of how the company wants style, technical purpose and sporting character to remain connected.