Fabio Taglioni joined Ducati in 1954 and his first design was the Gran Sport, presented in March 1955. It was the first Ducati single with an overhead camshaft driven by a bevel shaft with bevel gears. That engineering would remain the basis of all Ducati singles until 1974. It got the nickname ‘Marianna’ later.

The ‘100’ actually had 98 cc; a 125 followed. In the 1955 Giro d’Italia Gianni Degli Antoni won the 100 cc class and finished fifth overall, and in the Milano-Taranto the Gran Sport won the 100 and 125 cc classes. In 1956 it won both classes in both events, and in the 1957 Barcelona 24 Hours 125 Gran Sports took the first three places. It was a racer that privateers could order, not an ordinary road bike.