Kenny Brack wrestling a Ford GT40 round Goodwood in qualifying for the Whitsun Trophy. Owned by Red Bull Racing Formula One engineer Adrian Newey, the V8 Le Mans racer looks quite a handful round the wet circuit
lundi 16 septembre 2013
Credit Suisse Historic Racing Forum: Members' table for racing legends
On the opening night of Revival 2013, Credit Suisse invited selected guests to the newly opened ‘Race Control’ building to hold an automotive debate. Sir Stirling Moss, Nick Mason, Emanuele Pirro and Doug Nye were among those who shared their opinions on classic cars…
'The 16-cylinder BRM was seen by many as their least favourite'
Right from the off, the discussion – involving racers, collectors and experts – centred on the cars worthy of a place in a theoretical dream garage. Of course, this prompted a healthy debate, with many chipping in with their most- and least-loved cars of all time. For the elder statesman of the racing track, Sir Stirling Moss, there are two cars in particular which hold a special place in his heart: one is the car which has earned him his most career wins, the Mercedes 300 SLR; he also holds back some praise for the Maserati 250F.
This was in stark contrast to the choices of five-times Le Mans winner Emanuele Pirro. Unsurprisingly, the Italian sees his former workhorses as his favourites – namely the 1988 McLaren MP4/4 F1 racer and the diesel Audi R8 prototype in which he won Le Mans. Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason spoke of his affections for the Maserati Birdcage, an example of which is regularly raced by his son-in-law. He was apparently happy to find an audience for his numerous car-related stories, which – he says – fall on deaf ears at the family home.
Just as interesting was the discussion on the least-favoured cars. The 16-cylinder BRM was the choice of classic car expert Doug Nye, a choice supported by Nick Mason and several other members of the panel.
This served as a good example of Credit Suisse’s carefully selected appointments on the panel, with all members already familiar with each other and comfortable to express their honest opinions. The meeting is well worthy of becoming a regular feature for racing drivers at future Revival weekends.
More information about Credit Suisse's commitment to historic racing can be found at www.credit-suisse.com.
"Choices" Featuring Kurt Caselli on his RedBull KTM Rally Bike and F
Dirtbike Magazine has long been friends with the man of offroad Kurt Caselli. We spoke with him weeks ago about shooting a cover on his Rally bike that gave him so much success in his first ever Dakar Rally earlier in the year. Kurt now has the option to ride Rally and Baja. He is such a well rounded rider and has phenomenal bike skill. This video is only a mild respresentation of what Kurt can really do. Shot on the RED by Travis Fant.
Simoncelli: sculpture at Coriano shoots a 58 second flame every Sunday evening
Yesterday in Coriano, the home town of the late Marco Simoncelli this sculpture created artist Arcangelo Sassolino was officially unveiled following the Misano GP.
The sculpture that resembles a motorcycle exhaust, is dubbed ‘Every Sunday’ and every Sunday at dusk, the working sculpture will shoot a 58 second long, three meter flame that will illuminate the night of small Italian town to remember the late MotoGP rider.
58 seconds to remember Simoncelli’s racing number, and the fire representes the symbol of the Italian rider’s passion for motorcycles and racing.
The idea to dedicate still another tribute came from Lino Dainese, the founder of Dainese, the internationally known protective sports gear company, who proposed the idea to Paolo and Rosella Simoncelli, and picked the young Italian artist to create the artwork.
via TWOWHEELSBLOG
Ferrari 458 Speciale Official Video
Seeing the Ferrari 458 Speciale up close at the 2013 Frankfurt International Motor Show and reading its specs shows any visitor to the German car show that this is the fastest V8 powered Ferrari ever made but a static display can’t showcase the car’s performance only the official video we’re bringing you here can do that.
It goes without saying that this new Ferrari is based on the Ferrari 458 Italia so it’s powered by the same 4.5 litre V-8 found in the Italia. With this car Ferrari has produced their fastest naturally aspirated machine to date. The mid-mounted direct-injection engine produces 597bhp and 398lb ft of torque. Its acceleration is a stunning 3.0 seconds to 62mph and the top speed is equally impressive at 202mph, although that’s no faster than the Italia.
The Prancing Horse claim that the 458 Speciale has lapped the Fiorano test track at 1min 23.5sec, 1.5sec, which is quicker than the Italia has managed around there but half a second slower than the F12 Berlinetta. Aside from the horsepower upgrade the 458 Speciale’s lap time also comes from aero upgrades including the moveable aerodynamic flaps which are shown moving in the video to create downforce or to reduce drag whether the car’s in the corners or on the straight. Ferrari’s Side Slip Angle Control also accounts for some of the performance as it optimises torque through the traction control system.
Ferrari hasn’t yet announced the price but we’re expecting the Ferrari 458 Speciale to be £30,000 more than the 458 Italia’s base price of £178,526.
via EUROCARBLOG
1993 Honda XR600
I first saw this bike in some images sent by It's owner Lincoln. It was a busy couple of month's planning a motorcycle show like no other and the search continued for 60 of Australia's best unseen customs. Upon opening the email a smile from cheek to cheek appeared on my face, this sort of smile is usually reserved for rockabilly chicks with tattoos but this bike was hitting a whole lot of my buttons.
In fact alot of things make me smile but when it comes to bikes its the weird and wonderful. Its the left of centre. Its the bikes that douchebags love to pay out that make me happy. When I saw this I was adamant that we NEEDED this bike for Throttle Roll 2013.
After Throttle Roll I was adamant that we need to get some photos and words to share with the world!
Here are the words by Lincoln Black the owner:
Already done when bike was purchased
- Ballards 630 big bore kit
- Big Gun exhaust header (which I cut and shut for the new muffler)
- Keihin flat slide carb
- Big disc conversion
Mods done after purchase
- New subframe
- '82 Kawasaki Z750 tank which I completely removed the bottom, reshaped the tank, fabricated a new bottom and brazed it in.
- Tank has a generic weld-in fuel cap
- Tank and frame are just clear coated. All alloy parts are sand blasted.
- Tank artwork is hand painted and the badges are printed off a 3D printer and hand finished.
- It doesn't look it, but there's probably 40+ hours in the tank!
- Seat is a custom leather item (upholstered by Stitched Up Custom Trim) on a seat pan I fabbed.
- Front suspension was lowered 160mm with internal spacers
- Rear shock was lowered 80mm and then the rear was lowered a further 50mm with a custom linkage
- Wheels are Warp 9 super moto wheels laced with Buchannans s/s spokes onto the stock hubs
- Rubber is garden variety Pirelli Sport Demons
- Front guard is a carbon fibre thing I molded myself using the tyre as a mold and mounted to a RSW Racing for brace
- Top triple clamp is also RSW Racing
- Headlight is a 7" bottom mount Harley unit.
- Oil cooler is off a Honda TRX450 quad.
- Decompression lever was turfed and I made a small lever to mount directly to the head.
- Speedo is a digital Koso unit with the sender mounted to the rear caliper
- All electrics are relocated to under the seat and the bike fully rewired.
- Lights and mirrors are just generic guff.
- Breast size probably about a 38A.
The total build took 14 months.
Here are the photos taken by MY MEDIA SYDNEY:
Triumph Flat Tracker
Your name is Chris Atkinson. Some like me would rename you Christ for the sake of a laugh from the postie when delivering packages.
You’ve got the space
You’ve got the skill
You’ve got a backround of flat tracking the fuck out of bikes.
Highly competent in everything you put your mind to and the creative ability to design a bike in your head and create something that you enjoy. In doing so you create something unique that the world will enjoy. Introducing you to Chris’ Triumph Bonneville Custom Flat Tracker.
- Free Spirits billet triple clamps
- Pro Taper Pastrana FMX bars and grips
- Bar end mirrors
- MAS front guard
- RG Racing engine crash bars
- Free Spirits headlamp and front plate
- Kellerman blinkers
- Triumph front brake fluid reservoir
- Triumph tacho and dash panel
- Custom Moon fuel cap
- Dime City Cycles rear sets
- Gazi Thruxton rear shocks
- MAS chain guard
- British Customs 2 into 1 stainless exhaust
- MAS rear tail section
- Biltwell tail and stop lights
- Pirelli Corsa tyres
- Custom side plates
- 3" swingarm extension
- Custom paint work
- Secondary air intake, Snorkel and O2 Sensors removed (naughty, naughty)
- KN air filter
- Custom engine tune
Photos by: Cam Elkins
HOREX VR6
This is the third piece in a new series on Silodrome written by the talented Jason Cormier, Jason is a writer, an avid motorcyclist, a Ducati die-hard, and a shadetree mechanic based in Montreal. He’s the editor of Odd-Bike.com, a unique website that showcases the history of rare and unusual motorcycles from around the world.
Six-cylinder motorcycles are some of the most excessive, useless, and magnificently overwrought machines you will encounter. A well-tuned four of equal displacement will easily do the job with far less complexity, but it won’t turn anyone’s head – if you want to get noticed, you have to go big and go excessive with your engineering. The list of six-cylinder motorcycles is, admittedly, a short one. For production machines you have the Benelli Sei, the Honda CBX, the Kawasaki KZ1300, and the current BMW K1600 and Honda Goldwing 1800. For race bikes you have the Honda RC166, RC174 and Laverda V6. Recently there has been a new addition to the list that has been garnering some attention, and it comes from a long-defunct German brand that came out of nowhere in 2010 to announce that they would build a six-cylinder roadster with an engine design unlike anything else on two wheels.
Historically, Horex was a German assembler of motorcycles founded in 1923 as an offshoot of the Rex glassworks company in Bad Homburg (hence the name, Ho Rex). The company began by building machines around outsourced four-stroke singles supplied by German manufacturer Columbus, eventually merging with Columbus in 1925 to bring engine production in-house. They produced a range of large displacement (250cc plus) singles and parallel twins that were well respected, with an occasional success in racing. Horex survived the Second World War and continued operating until 1956, when production was suspended after months of declining sales. Daimler-Benz then purchased the brand in 1960 and absorbed it into the DB empire. But the name was not dead. Friedl Münch, famous for his Mammut series of car-engined roadsters, purchased the rights to the brand in 1977. A massive 1400cc roadster dubbed the Horex 1400 TI was produced in 1978. The name was purchased again in the 1980s by Hörmann-Rawema and another attempt was made to revive the marque by building a series of sporting machines around Rotax and Honda four-stroke singles. Unfortunately, despite the production of some handsome and modern sport machines, the attempt didn’t succeed in reviving the storied brand and Horex laid dormant during the 1990s and 2000s.
In 2010 Horex was resurrected once again, but this time with an entirely German design with an in-house engine. Some concept sketches and tech specs were released for a sport standard with a supercharged six-cylinder “VR6” engine. The motorcycling press was taken aback, and a more than a bit skeptical. A forced-induction six-cylinder machine? From a brand that had been dead for decades? Slated for production within two years? With a (not-insane) projected price of around €20000? Many had seen such outlandish claims before from other newly minted manufacturers who would promptly disappear into the ether, often with a boatload of investor capital. But Horex was more than typical vapourware, and was working closely with a number of major German companies to develop their Roadster.
Before we discuss the Horex Roadster, however, we must first talk about Lancia and Volkswagen.
Piston engine layouts typically fall into three categories: inline, vee, and flat/boxer. The one setup you won’t find very often is the narrow-angle vee (or staggered cylinder) layout. Lancia was a pioneer of the format, introducing the 13-degree “Lambda” V-4 in 1922, and produced a series of narrow-angle designs up until the 1970s. A typical vee will have anything between 45 (Harley-Davidson V-twin) and 90 degree (Ducati L-twin). A narrow-angle vee (below 45 degrees) is so compact that both “banks” of cylinders can share the same block with a common cylinder head, making for a much more compact and lightweight package. You essentially combine the qualities of an inline engine with those of a vee – the block is as short as a vee, scarcely wider than an inline across the head, and shares the balance properties of an inline design. You get more cylinders into a much more compact package, with less complexity than a typical vee by combining the heads and block into a single unit.
While Lancia pioneered the staggered cylinder layout, and achieved some notable successes in rallying with their Fulvia 12.5 degree V-4, it would be Volkswagen who would make the narrow-angle vee a mass-produced design. Developed in the 1980s and introduced in the early 90s, the VR6 initially used a 15-degree vee with a common crankcase and cylinder head and two overhead cams operating all 12 (later 24) valves. The VR designation is referred to as either a “Verkürzt Reihenmotor” (shortened inline engine) or a “Vee-Reihenmotor” (vee-inline engine), depending on whom you ask or which Wikipedia entry you trust. The engine was developed as a compact six-cylinder that could be fitted into a front-drive car designed to accommodate a four-cylinder – indeed, the VR6 was the same length as a typical four and only slightly wider. It was an easy fit into a compact engine bay, without needing major modifications, which allowed VW to offer a six into compact cars that hitherto had never had the option.
The VR concept remains a signature of VW to this day, and has been further developed far beyond the original 2.8 litre, 12 valve six. The W8 uses the staggered piston arrangement to make an eight-cylinder engine that is the length of a V-4, while the VAG-engineered Bugatti Veyron uses a W16 layout based upon the design of the W8.
The Horex VR6 takes the basic principles and name of the VW engine, but is otherwise a clean-sheet design developed in-house. The liquid-cooled mill displaces 1218cc via an oversquare 68x55mm bore/stroke. The head is a one-piece design with a flat mating surface above the block. Because the cylinders are angled while the head is flat, slanted-deck pistons are used to maintain the 11.5:1 compression – slanted pistons were also used in the Lancia and VW engines, so it isn’t a new idea, but it’s still quite unusual.
Unlike previous designs, the Horex uses a unique triple-overhead cam arrangement with three valves per cylinder. The front cam operates the exhausts of the front row of cylinders. The middle cam operates the rear bank of exhaust valves and the intakes of the front bank. The rear cam operates the intake valves of the rear bank. Very simple (apparently). It also makes the Horex the first TOHC production engine. To make things even more unusual, the Horex has radial valves – this means that the valve stems are angled out slightly so the valve faces encircle the dome of the combustion chamber, a feature shared with Honda RFVC singles and the MV Agusta F4.
One problem of automotive narrow angle vees with one-piece heads is porting. The intake and exhaust ports are asymmetrical due to the staggered layout of the combustion chambers, which means half of the cylinders have longer ports. This causes tuning problems that need to be addressed by bolting on extended intake runners and exhaust headers for the “short” ports. The Horex solves the problem by using asymmetrical exhaust headers and downdraft intake ports – the intakes run through the valve cover, with the airbox and throttle bodies placed above the engine.
The initial prototype was shown with a belt-driven Rotrex supercharger nestled above the gearbox to the rear of the cylinders. Projected power was in the 200 hp range. At some point in development the (admittedly superfluous) supercharger assembly was dropped and the now naturally aspirated production engine was rated at 161hp with 101 lb/ft of torque. Extensive testing and dyno tuning has been performed to ensure reliability and tidy fueling. Peak power is at 8800 rpm and torque is claimed to be a fairly flat curve with the peak under 7000rpm, which should mean a fairly relaxed motor with a broad spread of power. The reviewers who were fortunate enough to sample the limited-production machine noted that power delivery is buttery smooth, strong and very useable. A VR6 has the advantage of possessing the same perfect primary balance and lack of rocking-couple flex you get in a straight-six, so its no surprise that journalists noted how smooth the engine was. It also has a distinctive engine note, not a turbine-wail like most inline-sixes, but a seductive growl that sounds like a CBX gargling gravel.
Chassis-wise the Horex uses a hybrid bridge frame that has a steel steering support mated to a pair of aluminum spars. It looks like a sport bike twin-beam frame, except the spars are curved high over the top of the engine. This gives the machine a tall stance that shows off the big six while lending some serious visual mass to the complete machine. The VR6 does not look delicate, nor is it a lightweight – claimed dry weight is about 550lbs, hardly sport bike territory but a damn sight better than the 720lbs (dry!) BMW K1600GT, which is lighter still than the 800 lb gorilla Honda GL1800. Sure, that might be an unfair apples-to-staplers comparison, but what else is there in the way of six-cylinder motorcycles on the market today? The Horex is certainly the definitive option in the burgeoning ‘more-than-four-cylinder-German-naked-semi-sporting-retro-inspired-roadster-from-a-previously-defunct-brand’ sector of the market.
The Roadster’s styling errs on the conservative side without looking too much like a throwback. There is a brawny, hewn-from-solid appearance to the design with massive components and styling that looks clean and modern without aping the insectoid plastic-cladded designs from the East. I’d go so far as to say there is a hint of Teutonic automotive design in the slab-sided forms of the frame, tank and engine covers. It’s not particularly groundbreaking but it has its own appeal in a market inundated with cheesy retro repops and plastic-addled two-wheeled spaceships.
Suspension is via Works Performance at both ends – a beefy 48mm upside down fork up front, and a conventional rising-rate monoshock at the rear hooked up to a trendy single-sided swingarm. Brakes are from Brembo, with an advanced ABS system by Bosch. While the supercharged prototype was shown with a belt final drive, the production version uses a chain with an exclusive dry lubrication system. The chain passes over a block of solid graphite, which lubricates the chain and sprockets without oil or grease to fling all over the place. While this type of setup has been around for some time (and has some criticisms, particularly in terms of its penetrating ability on O- and X-ring chains) this is the first time it has been offered on a production machine. Supposedly you get longer chain and sprocket life without any maintenance or mess, and the dry lube won’t pick up road grime like sticky chain lube does.
Production began, a year behind schedule, in 2012 with the first dealer deliveries in November-December. The Roadster is being built in a new state-of-the-art facility in Augsburg with the “one man, one machine” assembly philosophy to ensure impeccable quality control. A single technician, who follows the bike along a multi-step assembly line, builds each individual machine. It’s reminiscent of the production line of boutique brand Bimota, who have a single mechanic assemble a bike in a stationary bay, with slightly more efficient German methodology. Remarkably Horex boasts a rather impressive dealer network considering their relatively recent appearance on the market – in 2012 35 dealers were announced across Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Current retail price in Germany is € 22500, not far off the original target price.
The Horex VR6 Roadster is, at its core, a teutonic bruiser that has no peers in the market. Sure there are big naked muscle bikes available from other brands but none offer the technical prowess of an ultra-compact and powerful six-cylinder powerplant. Nor do they offer the cachet and hand-assembled quality of the Horex. While the initial specs might have seemed improbable, the VR6 is here and is in showrooms more or less as-promised, a testament to the determination and skill of the company’s team in bringing such an advanced and unusual design to production in a relatively short period of time. Many brands have failed while offering far less exotic products, but Horex has weathered the initial doubts to produce one of the most interesting production machines to come out of Germany in a long time.
Not only that, the VR6 adds another machine to the pantheon of legendary six-cylinder motorcycles, a rarified breed of exercises in engineering excess. Had Horex gone the conservative route and built a traditional four-cylinder roadster of similar specs, we wouldn’t be talking about it today, and you likely wouldn’t be drooling over it right now. If you want to get an inordinate amount of attention in the world of motorcycling, you must build a six.
from SILODROME
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