Pierre Terblanche, born in 1956 in Graaff-Reinet, was one of the designers of the Ducati 916. He also worked on the Ducati 888 and the 916. He has been the director of design at Ducati since 1997 and owns three Ducatis.
Pierre grew up in Uitenhage and graduated from Hoërskool Brandwag. His father was a woodwork teacher.. Pierre's first motor bike was a Honda 50cc. After studying graphic design at Port Elizabeth Technikon, he went to Cape Town, where he worked for an ad agency. When Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro attended a local conference, Pierre arranged a meeting where he gave him his portfolio of auto designs. Eighteen months later Pierre was in Italy and started looking for work in the car-design studios. His first job was a low-paying one, so he visited Ford’s design studio in Cologne and Design Düsseldorf, Volkswagen’s advanced design studio, where he met head designer Patrick le Quément. Pierre enrollled at the Royal College of Art for master’s programme in transport design, sponsored by le Quément. He worked under le Quément from 1986 to 1989, when he left VW for Ducati.
