The latest movie in the Terminator series is the upcoming “Terminator Salvation“, starring Christian Bale. While there will be lots of different Terminators, one model we’re especially looking forward to see is the “Moto-Terminator” seen in the trailer.

In Dubai recently, the second annual Cinema Against AIDS charity auction raised US$1.8 million. Among the celebrity audience were Goldie Hawn, Salma Hayek, Oliver Stone, Sharon Stone and Laura Linney, but to name a few.

Highest selling item of the night? None other than the “Terminator Salvation” premiere package which contained tickets to the premiere as well as the “Moto-Terminator” from the movie. The price? US$$140,000. I wonder who that lucky guy in Dubai who owns this bike is, and will he be riding it!??

バイカーブードゥー

Yes, your eyes aren’t playing tricks. It’s a LAMBORGHINI motorcycle. During the mid-80s, the Italian sportscar maker was looking to expand and diversify, so why not sportbikes, to cater to the same Need-For-Speed, Fast & Furious crowd which bought their sportscars? I knew Lamborghini made tractors, and their powerful engines powered boats, but never before have I seen Lamborghini bikes!

Lamborghini turned to French racing bike constructor BOXER to build their ultimate sportbike, the Lamborghini Design 90. Led by engineer Claude Fior (died 2001 in an aircraft accident), Boxer bikes were known for high-tech bikes hand-built to aerospace specs. High performance was ensured with the usage of a lightweight frame and a DOHC 16-Valve Kawasaki 4-cylinder engine pumping out 125 bhp.

Introduced in 1986, the bikes were priced at an astronomically high price of about US$13,500 just about twice as much as the most expensive high end bike then available. They styling, seen today is questionable, being inspired at the time by the 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Countach.

The design has been described by critics as being the equivalent of having an embarrassing public discharge of body waste in public, but remember, at the time side strakes were common on Testarossas and US-Spec Cizeta Moroders. This was to cover large scoops which were outlawed by US specifications. Side strakes were a symbol of speed and power in the 80s, but seen on a bike they look quite odd, in my humble opinion. In Italy, side strakes lived on, albeit in a toned-down manner on the Cagiva Freccia 125 and the Ducati Paso 907. About 25 units were scheduled for production, but the actual number of completed bikes is estimated to be around just only 5.

SOURCE

バイカーブードゥー

Top Gear has posted a short story on this amazing jet bike by Aussie builder Ron Laycock. The bike is equipped with a 3,800 bhp Rolls-Royce turbojet engine. I wouldn’t want to even guess his fuel consumption but I’d dare say his Jet Bike eats up tyres like nobody’s business! Good work Ron, but I really must recommend a full face helmet and fireproof overalls!

SOURCE

バイカーブードゥー

Austrian-based automotive consulting firm AVL (Anstalt für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen List), one of the largest privately owned companies for powertrain development, has developed a High Performance Diesel Motorcycle.

While the passenger car world has gained a lot of widespread acceptance in recent years as a result of CRDi (Common Rail Direct Injection) and intercooled turbos, providing better fuel economy and high torque output, the motorcycle world seems to have been left behind.

AVL put their engine and vehicle concept development skills to work as an internal R&D project, and the result was the world’s first high performance diesel engine specifically designed for motorcycles in terms of packaging and styling.

The AVL engine is a 4-stroke, water-cooled Diesel triple displacing 1331cc, with a state of the art 4-valve per cylinder DOHC head. It is turbocharged with a VTG (Variable Turbine Geometry) turbo, and an air-air intercooler. The injection system is CRDi and the pistons have oil jets for cooling. Balancers ensure that the bike’s vibrations are tolerable.

Maximum torque of 200Nm is available between 2000 and 3500 rpm and a peak power of 74 kW (100 HP) comes about between 4000 and 4500 rpm.

The AVL Diesel is packaged wonderfully in an attractive trellis frame

The AVL Diesel bike goes from 0-100 km/h in 2.96 seconds, faster than a Suzuki GSX1400 (3.0), Honda CB1300 (3.1) and a Kawasaki ZRX1200R (3.0). Furthermore emissions comply with EURO3 limits. It is not known if any motorcycle makers are working with AVL to bring this concept bike to production. Who’d be brave enough to do it? Triumph Motorcycles? Royal Enfield? BMW? Kawasaki (who’ve already got a military diesel based on the KLR650)? What’s your say? Comment below please.

SOURCE: AVL

バイカーブードゥー

This is just insane – a motorcycle with 24 German Dolmar chainsaw engines! Each of these high-performance air-cooled 79 cc units generates 4.6 kW of power (6.3 PS) at 9500 rpm. Apparently someone or some group/company called “Norther-German Comic Star” created this monstrosity.

Here’s a video of the monstrosity in action!

continue reading "DOLMETTE – GERMAN BIKE WITH 24 DOLMAR CHAINSAW ENGINES!"

Whitehouse (yes, only in Japan!), famous for replicas of the ‘KWAKA‘ Main Force Police (MFP) Kawasaki KZ1000 seen in Mad Max. Now they’ve gone and built what I believe to be a very cool pair of Honda CB750 Cafe Racers. More images below.

continue reading "HONDA CB750 CAFE RACERS BY WHITEHOUSE"

Behind each motorcycle is a philosophy, and Fritz W. Egli delivers them free. “Do you remember the good old days,” he writes in his prospectus “as motorcycles still made from steel and aluminium were built, not from colourful plastic”. His sideswipe at more recent offerings from Japan, China, et cetera are not new. However the Japanese reliability and performance image is what Egli was aiming for in his Egli Super Bullet 624cc, and the Swiss tuner has largely succeeded, albeit at huge costs and with great efforts.

For Egli, the Swiss Royal Enfield importer, a simple Bullet 500cc engine designed about 60 years ago was a desirable base on which to work his magic. Egli dismantles Bullets delivered from India and upgrades them with many improvements and new parts. Although greatly appreciated, this was simply not enough for one customer, who brought Egli the idea of building a Bullet-based light single cylinder sports motorcycle. Of course, the basis for this bike would be Egli’s famous central tube frame constructed from nickel-plated chromium-molybdenum steel, the hallmark of Egli’s motorcycle tuning efforts.

Egli’s trademark oil-in-spine frame form the basis of the Egli Super Bullet, along with a matching aluminium fuel tank

The engine could of course, no longer be stock as it usually is. An aluminium cylinder, US-sourced piston, larger valves in a redesigned cylinder head, longer stroke crankshaft (105mm), special main bearings, dry clutch, timing belt primary drive, 36mm Keihin flat-slide carburettors were added among other tricks (Egli’s option list for Bullet specials span 29 pages!). The output is 40PS from a 624cc engine fed via an electric pump from a classic-looking aluminium tank. The original 500cc puts out only 22PS.

Metzeler ME Z1 tyres wrap around 18-inch alloy wheels, attached to an Egli fork up front, and damped with Koni dampers at the rear. The front disc brake is equipped with a Spiegler 8-piston caliper, stopping the Super Bullet which has a total weight of 139kg. The Egli Super Bullet can easily attain 160 km/h.

The dashboard consists of a VDO oil temperature gauge, and a classic 80s-style Krober tachometer. Exclusivity is guaranteed as only two examples have been built thus far, at an outlandish price of RM125,000 (Euros 25,100 / US$39,200)! As exorbitant as it may seem, we must appreciate the efforts of Egli as the motorcycle scene would be much poorer without him and people like Dan Holmes and his DRS Cycles Bullet Racer.

I strongly believe Royal Enfield should build a series-production Egli Super Bullet for enthusiasts around the world. Mass production could make the Super Bullet more affordable and I’m sure Royal Enfield dealers in North America, Europe and elsewhere would love to sell Super Bullets in their showrooms. If you share my humble opinion, please record your thoughts in the ‘comments’ section by clicking the comment button below. Thank you!

PICS/INFO: EGLI RACING

バイカーブードゥー

Fritz W. Egli, the ingenious Swiss motorcycle mechanic an design engineer is no stranger to many bike enthusiasts worldwide. He has become famous for putting his ‘EGLI‘ touch on countless series-production motorcycle engines and chassis. Over the years, the name Egli has become synonymous with bikers expectations of Swiss meticulousness, effort and precision. Egli simply describes his work as making a motorcycle more ‘friendly’.

This authorised, official film on Fritz Egli presents the background story and the legendary mods and improvements made by EGLI – for example the Honda CB750, CBX, Kawasaki Z1, MRD1 and others. The film includes impressive shots from all perspectives while riding both on road and track. Fritz Egli can be seen working on his incredible machine. Unique to this film is his 1986 attempt at a world record in Nardo, digitally revised and exclusive to this DVD only.

The DVD costs Euro24.90 not including shipping, and more information is on www.eglifilm.eu. Egli currently sells brands like Yamaha, Royal Enfield, Chang Jiang, MZ, Sherco, Rieju and Sachs.

バイカーブードゥー

Some of us may remember Akira, a 1988 Japanese anime film version by Katsuhiro Otomo, which was based on his original manga comic story. The story is about characters in post-nuclear war 2019 Tokyo, where Neo-Tokyo is filled with protestors, teenage bikers, soldiers and street gangs.

Central character Kaneda, a biker who attends reform school battles with his Capsule Motorcycle Club against the Clown bike gang and rides a really cool (how can he afford it!?) bike which has been the subject of the manga, anime and several attempts to produce 1:1 scale Akira-influenced bikes. Bandai also made a highly detailed model, which I recently acquired (and will review here later). McFarlane Toys had earlier made a plastic version whereas the Bandai version seems to have a metal subframe and lots of options to remove and add on bodywork.

In the anime, the sound of the Kaneda bike was produced by mixing the sound of a 1929 Harley-Davidson with the sound of a jet engine! The design was supposedly by a former Honda R&D engineer who left Honda to work for White House, a Japanese custom bike company. The manga showed the Kaneda bike with a Honda logo whereas the anime had a (sort of) BMW logo.

The Kaneda bike has become something of a motorcycling icon, despite being a work of fiction! Thousands of moped riders in Malaysia and elsewhere proudly placed ‘Akira’ stickers on their helmets, and the bike has embedded itself in the psyche of bikers everywhere. In addition to the manga, anime, toys and DIY replicas, an upcoming live action movie is in the works. More on that later.

バイカーブードゥー

Kawasaki recently introduced the D-Tracker and KLX250 (Off-road version of the same bike) in Malaysia and BikerVoodoo has also presented information on Military bikes, but here is something that I’m sure you’ll find interesting – the JGSDF Military Kawasaki KLX250!

The USMC now uses the M1030M1, a Diesel variant of the Kawasaki KLR650 based motorcycle, but in earlier times also used the KLR250D8.

The military Kawasaki KLR250, predecessor to the KLX250, was in production for about 20 years and has been used by a variety of personnel for duties as mundane as domestic base courier services, all the way to in-theatre communications, scouting, special forces use, and even airborn troops. The KLR250 was used by the USMC, US Army, USAF and also the Canadian military. It has seen action in Grenada, Panama and Desert Storm. In spite of the military success achieved by Kawasaki in North America, Japanese Ground Self-Defence Forces (JGSDF) has utilised the Honda XLR250R as a military motorcycle but in recent times, the JGSDF has turned to Kawasaki for their KLX250 instead.

The militarised KLX250 is equipped for reconnaisance and also equips artillery units. In addition to being set up for all-terrain use, the KLX is painted Olive Drab all over, and the powerplant is blacked out. Racks for stowage of equipment, radios and packs are fitted, along with black out taillamps, and protective bars for the front and rear lights.

SPECIFICATIONS
Length: 2,135mm
Width: 885mm
Height: 1,210mm
Weight: 117kg
Max. Speed: 135km/h
Crew: 1
Manufacturer: Kawasaki Heavy Industries

バイカーブードゥー

The latest movie in the Terminator series is the upcoming “Terminator Salvation“, starring Christian Bale. While there will be lots of different Terminators, one model we’re especially looking forward to see is the “Moto-Terminator” seen in the trailer.

In Dubai recently, the second annual Cinema Against AIDS charity auction raised US$1.8 million. Among the celebrity audience were Goldie Hawn, Salma Hayek, Oliver Stone, Sharon Stone and Laura Linney, but to name a few.

Highest selling item of the night? None other than the “Terminator Salvation” premiere package which contained tickets to the premiere as well as the “Moto-Terminator” from the movie. The price? US$$140,000. I wonder who that lucky guy in Dubai who owns this bike is, and will he be riding it!??

バイカーブードゥー

Yes, your eyes aren’t playing tricks. It’s a LAMBORGHINI motorcycle. During the mid-80s, the Italian sportscar maker was looking to expand and diversify, so why not sportbikes, to cater to the same Need-For-Speed, Fast & Furious crowd which bought their sportscars? I knew Lamborghini made tractors, and their powerful engines powered boats, but never before have I seen Lamborghini bikes!

Lamborghini turned to French racing bike constructor BOXER to build their ultimate sportbike, the Lamborghini Design 90. Led by engineer Claude Fior (died 2001 in an aircraft accident), Boxer bikes were known for high-tech bikes hand-built to aerospace specs. High performance was ensured with the usage of a lightweight frame and a DOHC 16-Valve Kawasaki 4-cylinder engine pumping out 125 bhp.

Introduced in 1986, the bikes were priced at an astronomically high price of about US$13,500 just about twice as much as the most expensive high end bike then available. They styling, seen today is questionable, being inspired at the time by the 25th Anniversary Lamborghini Countach.

The design has been described by critics as being the equivalent of having an embarrassing public discharge of body waste in public, but remember, at the time side strakes were common on Testarossas and US-Spec Cizeta Moroders. This was to cover large scoops which were outlawed by US specifications. Side strakes were a symbol of speed and power in the 80s, but seen on a bike they look quite odd, in my humble opinion. In Italy, side strakes lived on, albeit in a toned-down manner on the Cagiva Freccia 125 and the Ducati Paso 907. About 25 units were scheduled for production, but the actual number of completed bikes is estimated to be around just only 5.

SOURCE

バイカーブードゥー

Top Gear has posted a short story on this amazing jet bike by Aussie builder Ron Laycock. The bike is equipped with a 3,800 bhp Rolls-Royce turbojet engine. I wouldn’t want to even guess his fuel consumption but I’d dare say his Jet Bike eats up tyres like nobody’s business! Good work Ron, but I really must recommend a full face helmet and fireproof overalls!

SOURCE

バイカーブードゥー

Austrian-based automotive consulting firm AVL (Anstalt für Verbrennungskraftmaschinen List), one of the largest privately owned companies for powertrain development, has developed a High Performance Diesel Motorcycle.

While the passenger car world has gained a lot of widespread acceptance in recent years as a result of CRDi (Common Rail Direct Injection) and intercooled turbos, providing better fuel economy and high torque output, the motorcycle world seems to have been left behind.

AVL put their engine and vehicle concept development skills to work as an internal R&D project, and the result was the world’s first high performance diesel engine specifically designed for motorcycles in terms of packaging and styling.

The AVL engine is a 4-stroke, water-cooled Diesel triple displacing 1331cc, with a state of the art 4-valve per cylinder DOHC head. It is turbocharged with a VTG (Variable Turbine Geometry) turbo, and an air-air intercooler. The injection system is CRDi and the pistons have oil jets for cooling. Balancers ensure that the bike’s vibrations are tolerable.

Maximum torque of 200Nm is available between 2000 and 3500 rpm and a peak power of 74 kW (100 HP) comes about between 4000 and 4500 rpm.

The AVL Diesel is packaged wonderfully in an attractive trellis frame

The AVL Diesel bike goes from 0-100 km/h in 2.96 seconds, faster than a Suzuki GSX1400 (3.0), Honda CB1300 (3.1) and a Kawasaki ZRX1200R (3.0). Furthermore emissions comply with EURO3 limits. It is not known if any motorcycle makers are working with AVL to bring this concept bike to production. Who’d be brave enough to do it? Triumph Motorcycles? Royal Enfield? BMW? Kawasaki (who’ve already got a military diesel based on the KLR650)? What’s your say? Comment below please.

SOURCE: AVL

バイカーブードゥー

This is just insane – a motorcycle with 24 German Dolmar chainsaw engines! Each of these high-performance air-cooled 79 cc units generates 4.6 kW of power (6.3 PS) at 9500 rpm. Apparently someone or some group/company called “Norther-German Comic Star” created this monstrosity.

Here’s a video of the monstrosity in action!

continue reading "DOLMETTE – GERMAN BIKE WITH 24 DOLMAR CHAINSAW ENGINES!"

Whitehouse (yes, only in Japan!), famous for replicas of the ‘KWAKA‘ Main Force Police (MFP) Kawasaki KZ1000 seen in Mad Max. Now they’ve gone and built what I believe to be a very cool pair of Honda CB750 Cafe Racers. More images below.

continue reading "HONDA CB750 CAFE RACERS BY WHITEHOUSE"

Behind each motorcycle is a philosophy, and Fritz W. Egli delivers them free. “Do you remember the good old days,” he writes in his prospectus “as motorcycles still made from steel and aluminium were built, not from colourful plastic”. His sideswipe at more recent offerings from Japan, China, et cetera are not new. However the Japanese reliability and performance image is what Egli was aiming for in his Egli Super Bullet 624cc, and the Swiss tuner has largely succeeded, albeit at huge costs and with great efforts.

For Egli, the Swiss Royal Enfield importer, a simple Bullet 500cc engine designed about 60 years ago was a desirable base on which to work his magic. Egli dismantles Bullets delivered from India and upgrades them with many improvements and new parts. Although greatly appreciated, this was simply not enough for one customer, who brought Egli the idea of building a Bullet-based light single cylinder sports motorcycle. Of course, the basis for this bike would be Egli’s famous central tube frame constructed from nickel-plated chromium-molybdenum steel, the hallmark of Egli’s motorcycle tuning efforts.

Egli’s trademark oil-in-spine frame form the basis of the Egli Super Bullet, along with a matching aluminium fuel tank

The engine could of course, no longer be stock as it usually is. An aluminium cylinder, US-sourced piston, larger valves in a redesigned cylinder head, longer stroke crankshaft (105mm), special main bearings, dry clutch, timing belt primary drive, 36mm Keihin flat-slide carburettors were added among other tricks (Egli’s option list for Bullet specials span 29 pages!). The output is 40PS from a 624cc engine fed via an electric pump from a classic-looking aluminium tank. The original 500cc puts out only 22PS.

Metzeler ME Z1 tyres wrap around 18-inch alloy wheels, attached to an Egli fork up front, and damped with Koni dampers at the rear. The front disc brake is equipped with a Spiegler 8-piston caliper, stopping the Super Bullet which has a total weight of 139kg. The Egli Super Bullet can easily attain 160 km/h.

The dashboard consists of a VDO oil temperature gauge, and a classic 80s-style Krober tachometer. Exclusivity is guaranteed as only two examples have been built thus far, at an outlandish price of RM125,000 (Euros 25,100 / US$39,200)! As exorbitant as it may seem, we must appreciate the efforts of Egli as the motorcycle scene would be much poorer without him and people like Dan Holmes and his DRS Cycles Bullet Racer.

I strongly believe Royal Enfield should build a series-production Egli Super Bullet for enthusiasts around the world. Mass production could make the Super Bullet more affordable and I’m sure Royal Enfield dealers in North America, Europe and elsewhere would love to sell Super Bullets in their showrooms. If you share my humble opinion, please record your thoughts in the ‘comments’ section by clicking the comment button below. Thank you!

PICS/INFO: EGLI RACING

バイカーブードゥー

Fritz W. Egli, the ingenious Swiss motorcycle mechanic an design engineer is no stranger to many bike enthusiasts worldwide. He has become famous for putting his ‘EGLI‘ touch on countless series-production motorcycle engines and chassis. Over the years, the name Egli has become synonymous with bikers expectations of Swiss meticulousness, effort and precision. Egli simply describes his work as making a motorcycle more ‘friendly’.

This authorised, official film on Fritz Egli presents the background story and the legendary mods and improvements made by EGLI – for example the Honda CB750, CBX, Kawasaki Z1, MRD1 and others. The film includes impressive shots from all perspectives while riding both on road and track. Fritz Egli can be seen working on his incredible machine. Unique to this film is his 1986 attempt at a world record in Nardo, digitally revised and exclusive to this DVD only.

The DVD costs Euro24.90 not including shipping, and more information is on www.eglifilm.eu. Egli currently sells brands like Yamaha, Royal Enfield, Chang Jiang, MZ, Sherco, Rieju and Sachs.

バイカーブードゥー

Some of us may remember Akira, a 1988 Japanese anime film version by Katsuhiro Otomo, which was based on his original manga comic story. The story is about characters in post-nuclear war 2019 Tokyo, where Neo-Tokyo is filled with protestors, teenage bikers, soldiers and street gangs.

Central character Kaneda, a biker who attends reform school battles with his Capsule Motorcycle Club against the Clown bike gang and rides a really cool (how can he afford it!?) bike which has been the subject of the manga, anime and several attempts to produce 1:1 scale Akira-influenced bikes. Bandai also made a highly detailed model, which I recently acquired (and will review here later). McFarlane Toys had earlier made a plastic version whereas the Bandai version seems to have a metal subframe and lots of options to remove and add on bodywork.

In the anime, the sound of the Kaneda bike was produced by mixing the sound of a 1929 Harley-Davidson with the sound of a jet engine! The design was supposedly by a former Honda R&D engineer who left Honda to work for White House, a Japanese custom bike company. The manga showed the Kaneda bike with a Honda logo whereas the anime had a (sort of) BMW logo.

The Kaneda bike has become something of a motorcycling icon, despite being a work of fiction! Thousands of moped riders in Malaysia and elsewhere proudly placed ‘Akira’ stickers on their helmets, and the bike has embedded itself in the psyche of bikers everywhere. In addition to the manga, anime, toys and DIY replicas, an upcoming live action movie is in the works. More on that later.

バイカーブードゥー

Kawasaki recently introduced the D-Tracker and KLX250 (Off-road version of the same bike) in Malaysia and BikerVoodoo has also presented information on Military bikes, but here is something that I’m sure you’ll find interesting – the JGSDF Military Kawasaki KLX250!

The USMC now uses the M1030M1, a Diesel variant of the Kawasaki KLR650 based motorcycle, but in earlier times also used the KLR250D8.

The military Kawasaki KLR250, predecessor to the KLX250, was in production for about 20 years and has been used by a variety of personnel for duties as mundane as domestic base courier services, all the way to in-theatre communications, scouting, special forces use, and even airborn troops. The KLR250 was used by the USMC, US Army, USAF and also the Canadian military. It has seen action in Grenada, Panama and Desert Storm. In spite of the military success achieved by Kawasaki in North America, Japanese Ground Self-Defence Forces (JGSDF) has utilised the Honda XLR250R as a military motorcycle but in recent times, the JGSDF has turned to Kawasaki for their KLX250 instead.

The militarised KLX250 is equipped for reconnaisance and also equips artillery units. In addition to being set up for all-terrain use, the KLX is painted Olive Drab all over, and the powerplant is blacked out. Racks for stowage of equipment, radios and packs are fitted, along with black out taillamps, and protective bars for the front and rear lights.

SPECIFICATIONS
Length: 2,135mm
Width: 885mm
Height: 1,210mm
Weight: 117kg
Max. Speed: 135km/h
Crew: 1
Manufacturer: Kawasaki Heavy Industries

バイカーブードゥー