Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and Ducati Streetfighter 848 in Bologna

Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and Ducati Streetfighter 848 set for Bologna

The Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and the Ducatti Streetfighter 848 – both finished in ‘Streefighter Yellow’ – are set to appear at the Bologna Motor Show.

It’s almost exactly a year since the announcement that Mercedes AMG and Ducatti were to work together to promote both the AMG and Ducatti Brands. But we’ve not really see a lot of evidence of their collaboration so far.

So to push home the point that AMG and Ducatti are really, really serious about their joint efforts, this week’s Bologna Motor Show will see the Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and Ducati Streetfighter 848 starring together, with both finished in an appealing shade of Ducatti ‘Streetfighter Yellow’ custom paint jobs.

The logic of this collaboration was that AMG and Ducatti share a lot of customers in common. For ‘in common’ read wealthy. But the whole thing is rather one-sided in terms of numbers.

Ducatti only sell around 35,000 bikes a year – a similar figure to AMG – but Mercedes is a behemoth in terms of overall sales compared to Ducatti.

The cynical may say that Mercedes’ interest in Ducatti is more about trying to tag a motor bike arm on to the Mercedes empire – just like BMW – rather than joint promotion and development.

We had expected to see an AMG-badged Ducatti arrive by now, but that hasn’t happened. In fact, joint product staging and painting the SLK 55 AMG in a Ducatti colour seems to be about as far as Mercedes has got with this collaboration so far.

That said, the AMG logo has been popping up on racing overalls worn by Ducatti’s riders – and on the bikes – and Ducatti are busy renewing their company car fleet with Mercedes cars.

But our money’s still on Mercedes AMG swallowing up Ducatti at some point. Still, even if all the AMG Ducatti games yield is photos like the ones of the Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and Ducati Streetfighter 848 in the gallery below, that’s just fine.