pacomotorstuff
Coast to Coast
Car engined bikes - have you ever thought about one?
Seeing as my post on plunger-framed bikes has gotten everyone’s grey cells a-goin’, I thought that I might post another topic, namely, car-engined bikes.
This topic was precipitated by a conversation I had with one of my daughters today regarding a 1650cc, 4 port VW Beetle (the original one) motor I have collecting dust in a corner of the store room, remembering at one time, we were looking at stuffing it into a bike frame.
Anyway, over the years I’ve seen – either in photos, articles or in real life, the following:
Ford V-8 60 motor in an Indian four,
Ford 4 cylinder flathead – either a Model A or a Ford 9N motor – in probably an Indian four,
VW Beetle motor, anything from 1200cc on up including the early 4 cylinder Porsche motors, in a variety of bikes, a lot of them BMW’s but occasionally other stuff like the Indian shaft drive twin (the late Von Dutch built one) and sometimes with a 90 degree jackshaft, so a HD or other tranny could be used.
In fact, in Brazil in the ‘70’s, there was a motorcycle built called the Amazonas, which used a complete VW Beetle drivetrain. It was ugly, heavy and pretty slow.
Sunbeam Imp in solo and sidecar chassis – a number of hacks were raced at the international level back in the ‘60’s using various versions of these motors.
Austin Mini, solo and also the (in)famous John Cooper hacks(?) of the ‘60’s. I would so like to build one of those to run vintage, but I think they’ve been outlawed.
Subaru EA18 pushrod motor. A Dutch company offered brand new motorcycles using this motor, back in the late ‘70’s and I think into the early ‘80’s.
Corvair flat six. Everything from a single gear solo unit, to an automatic transmission trike and everything in between. Shaft drive and chain drive.
Munch Mammoth with the modified NSU car motor. A production bike out of Germany for a number of years.
And of course, there are (were?) the Boss Hogs with Chevy V-8 power. I remember seeing one chug through my town one Sunday morning – sounded like a fueler with mufflers. I believe the base model used the 4.3 liter V-6, but I’ve never seen one.
Then there was E.J. "Madman" Potter, who drag raced small block Chevy bikes back in the '60's.
The Moto Guzzi V7 motor started out as the powerplant for a light military vehicle designed to tow antitank guns I believe.
I’m know I’ve missed a whole bunch of bikes, so please add to the list if you can.
In closing, I guess the other part of this post is a question: could you make a car-engined bike that would handle – ie, corner, stop and accelerate, be practical and reliable enough that you could use it as a street bike and if so, what motor would you use?
Lots of stuff on the cerebral drawing board.
Pat
Seeing as my post on plunger-framed bikes has gotten everyone’s grey cells a-goin’, I thought that I might post another topic, namely, car-engined bikes.
This topic was precipitated by a conversation I had with one of my daughters today regarding a 1650cc, 4 port VW Beetle (the original one) motor I have collecting dust in a corner of the store room, remembering at one time, we were looking at stuffing it into a bike frame.
Anyway, over the years I’ve seen – either in photos, articles or in real life, the following:
Ford V-8 60 motor in an Indian four,
Ford 4 cylinder flathead – either a Model A or a Ford 9N motor – in probably an Indian four,
VW Beetle motor, anything from 1200cc on up including the early 4 cylinder Porsche motors, in a variety of bikes, a lot of them BMW’s but occasionally other stuff like the Indian shaft drive twin (the late Von Dutch built one) and sometimes with a 90 degree jackshaft, so a HD or other tranny could be used.
In fact, in Brazil in the ‘70’s, there was a motorcycle built called the Amazonas, which used a complete VW Beetle drivetrain. It was ugly, heavy and pretty slow.
Sunbeam Imp in solo and sidecar chassis – a number of hacks were raced at the international level back in the ‘60’s using various versions of these motors.
Austin Mini, solo and also the (in)famous John Cooper hacks(?) of the ‘60’s. I would so like to build one of those to run vintage, but I think they’ve been outlawed.
Subaru EA18 pushrod motor. A Dutch company offered brand new motorcycles using this motor, back in the late ‘70’s and I think into the early ‘80’s.
Corvair flat six. Everything from a single gear solo unit, to an automatic transmission trike and everything in between. Shaft drive and chain drive.
Munch Mammoth with the modified NSU car motor. A production bike out of Germany for a number of years.
And of course, there are (were?) the Boss Hogs with Chevy V-8 power. I remember seeing one chug through my town one Sunday morning – sounded like a fueler with mufflers. I believe the base model used the 4.3 liter V-6, but I’ve never seen one.
Then there was E.J. "Madman" Potter, who drag raced small block Chevy bikes back in the '60's.
The Moto Guzzi V7 motor started out as the powerplant for a light military vehicle designed to tow antitank guns I believe.
I’m know I’ve missed a whole bunch of bikes, so please add to the list if you can.
In closing, I guess the other part of this post is a question: could you make a car-engined bike that would handle – ie, corner, stop and accelerate, be practical and reliable enough that you could use it as a street bike and if so, what motor would you use?
Lots of stuff on the cerebral drawing board.
Pat
