Worst of all, as it costs £14,000, corrosion had already set in on our 400-mile test bike: bolt heads in the cylinder tops and engine covers were already turning brown.

Sure, the gas tank, fender and side covers, all glistening in blood red on my test bike, look period-correct, even if they are not clones of the original bike's pieces.

My test bike was fitted with the optional ABS, which also comes with firmer front suspension to maintain control when the anti-lock system operates.

Ducati says the lids of production versions will fit better than those on our test bikes, which would leak in the wet.

Soon after production started Tim Healey was knocked off a test bike in an accident with a car and broke his ankle, but he continued at the workshop from a wheelchair.

The test bikes will try three wheel and tire designs, all about 20 inches in diameter with a tread section about 7 inches wide.

Before production, an instrumented test bike is created.

The chassis is unchanged from the 2008 production 1125Rs, though our original test bikes at Laguna were still being developed in this respect and weren't as confident as they should have been.

The top box, for example, is made of flimsy plastic with cheap catches that were already rusting on my test bike, while the lock wouldn't defeat a nine-year-old.

Fate duly succumbed: my Ulysses was the most unreliable long-term test bike we'd ever run at the Telegraph.