Here's a quick but neat read if you're curious about the origin of the branding elements that we've grown to love.
http://www.ducatinewstoday.com/2010/08/the-5-signature-ducati-elements-and-how-they-began/ (http://www.ducatinewstoday.com/2010/08/the-5-signature-ducati-elements-and-how-they-began/)
[thumbsup]
excellent refresher [drink]
I heard was that I all boiled down to poor quality steel being available in Italy at the time:
Poor quality steel mean shitty valve springs, so they went with desmo heads.
It also meant they couldn't make decent conventional frames, so they went to a trellis design.
Beats me if it's true or not...
They wanted a 125 that would rev to 14,000, so the quality of valve spring steel was an issue.
A trellis is a very efficient structure for a steel motorcycle frame.
Postwar Italy might have had a shortage of good steel, or at least at reasonable prices.
Mercedes also used Desomodromic timing in their W196 race car 1954-1955 as well as the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SLR sports racing car. Desmodromic was used both because of steel that was not up to the task of such high RPMs and the fact that valves could be open and closed quicker, both increasing performance. If you do a search you will see others have used Desmodromic valve timing too.