I had a Ducati 250 as well. Don't have a CBR250 yet, but I am considering it. How would you compare the two bikes?
Hey, 1966 was like 45 years ago!
The Ducati started most of the time. Never easily. Luckily I lived in Duluth MN which had a lot of steep hills. I always tried to park on a hill, facing downward.
The Ducati had both a regular exhaust and a megaphone. The megaphone sounded great! It would almost blow your hat off if you stood immediately behind it. But, it wouldn't run at all till it got up to 4K (neither dealer no I knew anything about jetting). Once it got going though it went well. But, it was loud. Cost me $75 for a noise ticket in Wisconsin. The judge had no sympaythy. The regular exhaust transformed it into a Honda 90.
The lights sucked. I have no idea of how I survived riding it at night.
Unfortunately for the Ducati, I decided I wanted to race. And the only way to race then was "scrambles". Thus, the tank, the seat, the headlight, the fenders, the rearsets, the clip-ons and all the misc tabs that I could cut off the frame went into the garbage.
It died a couple of years later in a garbage heat somewhere in Minneapolis when my cousin locked up the motor going up and down his alley.
