Chopped and screwed can mean one of two things:
Either A) an early ’90s hip-hop trend pioneered by DJ Screw in Houston.
Or B) what moto aficionado Sean Skinner did with this ‘65 Ducati 250 Scrambler at his Virginia motorcycle shop a little more recently.
Nicknamed the “Dastardly Ducati” because of how difficult it was to tame, this stripped-down Scrambler came to Skinner in pieces, so he opted to chop it down even further before screwing it all back together.
The build maintains its original front and rear hubs, but now has forks and triple clamps ripped from a TS250, new stainless spokes, a fresh headlight and a hot-off-the-brushes paint job.
Which brings us to the engine, a reworked job that came to Skinner as a leaky, disheveled mess. Undeterred, he tore it down to its bare cases and refitted it with new components sourced directly from Ducati. Staying as close as he could to the original, Skinner installed new bearings, seals, gaskets, valves and
“Ducati’s level of design, even back in the ’60s, is a work of art,” Skinner told Pipeburn. “There’s something about this engine that has been lost in modern engine design.”
Unfortunately, the Dastardly Ducati is already spoken for by a dastardly customer, but we’ll be checking up on Skinner to see what he wrangles up next.
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