Audi has no business case to buy Ducati

The prestige car wars have spilled onto two wheels with Audi buying the Ducati motorcycle brand.

The financial validity of the deal has been questioned by analysts, but no one can question the marketing logic that will give Audi a platform to directly compete with BMW and its motorbike Motorrad division.

Analysts say the Ducati buyout has no economic basis and instead fulfills VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piech's desire to own the Italian company's expertise on design and light engines. 

Piech tried to buy the Italian bike builder in 2008 and is a long-standing fan of the marque. 

"I can't think of a concrete reason for Audi to warrant a business case for buying Ducati," Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch-Gladbach, says.

Audi boss Rupert Stadler disagrees. "Ducati is known worldwide as a premium brand among motorcycle manufacturers and has a long tradition of building sporty motorcycles," he says.

"It has great expertise in high-performance engines and lightweight construction, and is one of the world's most profitable motorcycle manufacturers. That makes Ducati an excellent fit for Audi."

The takeover also marks the end of Ducati's partnership with Mercedes-Benz high-performance arm AMG. "The company takeover by a rival car manufacturer has understandably resulted in the end of any further collaboration," Mercedes-Benz says.

"The takeover of Ducati was never our aim - our focus lies clearly in developing and producing premium performance cars and we will be concentrating all our energy on this."

Audi built 1.3 million cars last year to overtake Mercedes-Benz in second place on the global prestige sales charts.

BMW is now firmly in the company's sights - and the Ducati brand can only help draw customers, based on AMG boss Ola Källenius observation when he teamed with Ducati in 2010 that : "The people who are into performance cars often also have a performance bike in their garages."

Ducati builds about 40,000 bikes a year, led by the Diavel cruiser and Panigale superbike. BMW's Motorrad division sold more than 104,000 bikes in 2011, while industry leader Honda shipped 16 million motorcycles.