August is a month that’s typically right in middle of new motorcycle announcement season. In most years, motorcycle manufacturers will have already started to announce some of next year’s models by now—and in that, 2023 is no exception. Another thing that’s true of this time of year is that we’ll have several calendar dates to look forward to for the bigger new bike announcements of the season—typically leading up to EICMA in November, when most OEMs bring out their shiniest new bikes for the world to see.
While those calendar dates are nice, of course, it’s also fun to see what clues we can put together before the official announcements are made. If you’re the type of person who likes a good puzzle, then digging into official documents, like the Executive Orders issued by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) can be a plentiful source of interesting documents to consider.
Take, for example, the Executive Order issued CARB for the 2024 Ducati Supersport family. For those unfamiliar with CARB, it’s California’s governing body on vehicle emissions. For vehicles to be sold within the state, they must adhere to standards set forth by the agency—and, if a vehicle conforms to those standards, it’s also usually sold throughout the rest of the US.
It’s incredibly rare that a model is only released in the US, so information found here may also be applicable to the rest of the world. That’s why it’s so useful if you’re interested in new motorcycle model sleuthing for any reason, whether you’re in the US or not.
Anyway, back to the 2024 Ducati SuperSport. CARB documents are typically issued by engine, and then by model family—meaning that they also tend to group models together in useful and informative ways. For 2023, Ducati lists just two Supersport 950 models for sale: the Supersport 950, and the SuperSport 950 S.
However, the CARB filing for the 2024 SuperSport family shows two additional model designations that we haven’t seen before. Alongside separate listings for “Ducati Supersport,” “Ducati SuperSport S,” “SuperSport 950,” and “SuperSpotr 950 S” (we’re pretty sure that’s a typo), there are the incredibly interesting listings for “Ducati SuperSport S T” and “Ducati SuperSport T.”
If you look at Ducati’s current lineup, there are undoubtedly a large number of different models aimed at different segments of ridership. You have the Panigale family, the DesertX, the Diavel V4, the XDiavel, the Hypermotard family, the Monster family, the Streetfighter family, the Multistrada family, and of course the Scrambler family.
Motorcyclists tend to be a stubborn lot, so even if a bike isn’t made for touring (or sport touring), we might still get it into our heads to make any given bike do it anyway. Still, a look at Ducati’s current lineup shows that it doesn’t currently offer a strong Touring or Sport Touring option. Those CARB model designations seem an awful lot like Ducati might be wanting to fill that gap in its lineup. The “T” could also be “Turismo,” which does admittedly roll off the tongue a little more nicely than the word “Touring.”
It’s now August 21, 2023, so we currently have most of Ducati’s 2024 World Première calendar to look forward to, starting in September. Unlike the 2023 World Première calendar, Ducati didn’t choose to give each Episode its own teaser title, so there’s no trying to read the tea leaves and match it up with this CARB information this season. Still, we look forward to seeing what these changes bring in the near future.
