Vintage Jeep & Ducati Motorcycle Become Road Dogs for Life
Jeep Commando with only 18,000 clocked miles and custom Ducati M900 may seem like an odd couple but are an great duo on the trails.
Most people that have a need to haul something take the easy route. That is, buying a new(er) pickup that can easily accomplish that task, comfortably and reliably. The problem with that approach, of course, is that it’s just boring. Newer trucks are largely devoid of character, style, and driving enjoyment. So when a gentleman named Alex Earle needed a vehicle to tow around his 1994 Ducati M900 racer, he began searching for something a little more interesting. And he found it in this 1967 Jeep Commando.
This perfect pairing and the story of how it came to exist is perfectly portrayed in this video from the always excellent Petrolicious. “This car represents a survivor that I sort of stumbled across,” Earle explains. “Now I’m sort of the caretaker of this thing, I feel like. I’ve been looking for one for a long time. I just really wanted a Commando. I stumbled across this one in Santa Monica. It wasn’t for sale, I just put a card on it. Ended up, the gentleman taking care of it was looking to get rid of it and he called me.”
The pairing of this Jeep and Earle seemed almost like a stroke of fate. As did the pairing of the Jeep and Earle’s stripped down Ducati motorcycle. “This Commando and this bike have become sort of a set,” he explains. “What I did to the M900 was to kind of strip it bare. Give it sort of this bare knuckled, underdog kind of character that I find in this Jeep as well.”
Amazingly, the Jeep had only 18,000 miles on it when Earle discovered it. But the Commando “had been neglected pretty much its whole life,” he admits. “I learned pretty much everything I know about automotive mechanics from this car,” said the longtime motorcycle builder. The good thing was, every single piece of the Jeep was original when he found it, which made the job much easier.
It might seem strange to pair an American Jeep with an Italian motorcycle. But somehow, it just works. “They don’t have a connection necessarily,” Earle says. “But I just find this rugged character, this style that they represent. “I feel like it’s perfect.”
So far, the Commando has held up amazingly well over rough trails and while hauling its custom cargo. The fact that the two just look cool together is an added bonus, in our book.
Photos: YouTube
Join the JK-Forums now!
