Ducati has found a new way to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and this time there are no two wheels involved. The Italian motorcycle maker has joined forces with Pirelli and SACS Marine to create a new high-performance RIB for the Pirelli Speedboats range, bringing Ducati’s unmistakable design language and racing obsession to the water. The result is the Pirelli 44 Ducati Edition, a limited-production maxi-RIB that looks every bit like a Ducati-inspired machine translated into nautical form. Just 26 examples will be built, with the number paying tribute to 1926, the year Ducati was founded.
The collaboration brings together three Italian companies whose identities have long been shaped by performance and engineering. Pirelli and SACS Marine have worked together for more than two decades, building the Pirelli Speedboats family of sporty walkaround maxi-RIBs, with the Pirelli 42 becoming the range’s biggest commercial success. The new Pirelli 44 carries that formula forward with a refreshed design, while the Ducati Edition pushes the concept into considerably more dramatic territory. Ducati’s Centro Stile worked on the boat’s visual identity, introducing a livery inspired by the Ducati Superleggera V4 Centenario and incorporating details drawn from the world of motorcycle racing.
There is a lot more to the boat than a familiar paint scheme and a Ducati badge. Its specification includes a dual-step sports hull developed by the Mannerfelt Design Team, a carbon-fiber hardtop, a black steel pack, and an Alcantara-trimmed dashboard and driver’s seats. A commemorative plaque and customizable number plate underline its limited-edition status, while aerodynamic extensions around the engines provide perhaps the clearest link to Ducati’s racing machines. Inspired by the aerodynamic fairings of MotoGP motorcycles, they give the watercraft an unusually aggressive silhouette for a RIB.
Pirelli’s contribution is equally tangible. The tubes of Pirelli Speedboats traditionally feature a tread pattern inspired by the Pirelli Cinturato Blue Wet motorsport tire, but the Ducati Edition adopts a pattern derived from the Pirelli DIABLO Supercorsa SP hypersport tire fitted to the Superleggera V4 Centenario. The pattern is sculpted and hand-carved by artisans at Pirelli’s R&D Centre, turning what could have been a simple graphic detail into a bespoke piece of craftsmanship.
Underneath all that Italian styling sits a serious powertrain. Three 500-horsepower Mercury Racing engines give the Pirelli 44 Ducati a combined 1,500 horsepower, while the boat has been designed to balance its performance with seaworthiness, safety, and comfort. It was unveiled as a world premiere in scale-model form at an exclusive event at Zuma Cannes on September 10 during the 2026 Cannes Yachting Festival, with the full-size vessel scheduled for an official unveiling in the coming months.
For Ducati, the project is another example of how far its identity can travel beyond motorcycles without losing its character. The Italian manufacturer’s CEO Claudio Domenicali has described performance as a common language shared by Ducati, Pirelli, and SACS Marine, and the Pirelli 44 Ducati makes that philosophy unusually tangible. It is not simply a Ducati-branded boat, but a deliberate meeting of motorcycle design, tire technology, marine engineering, and Italian craftsmanship. The partnership is also expected to continue through future events and initiatives, making this 26-boat run less an isolated experiment than the opening chapter of a much larger collaboration.
