Alma Pura? A brief toy with google translate reveals the meaning of the monicker gracing Vertigo70′s latest creation; Pure Soul. The essence of a motorcycle. Four months, four builds and four different donor bikes into their Bike Shed participation, Vertigo70 refuse predictability, and continue to roll unique rides out of their Milan HQ. Alma Pura is their take on the ever popular Dominator platform, a machine that persists to generate beautiful fodder for these pages.
The thumping single heart of the Dominator inspires simplicity and rewards minimalism, and this was the route the Vertigo70 team took. They chose to create a bike with a “Racing Soul” designed to run rings in the dirt around its competitors. Any unnecessary component was cut away and some useful ones were lost as well, but who needs a side stand anyway? This bike was designed to be ridden, to go, and then go again, only stopping in the garage.
The striking hand-crafted, fibreglass, flat track tail section waves loftily at the rooster tails sprayed in its wake. The white number boards eagerly awaiting some impromptu gaffa taped race numbers. The entire subframe was cast aside and the seat supported by invisible reinforcements, generating an incredibly light profile, the rear wheel encompassed by nothing but acres of air. The seat unit houses the battery and all electrical components, leaving the engine and rear shock uncluttered. It also contains a hidden tripod leg, that can be attached to an eyelet on the front fork, just incase there is no supportive wall available to lean the bike against.
The tank comes from the familial Honda XL and was stripped raw before receiving the dark, rich cherry paint, but only where needed. It is a style and finish we have seen from Vertigo70 before, on their McQueen CB500, on the Dominator it combines with the spoked wheels to evoke images of the scramblers from days of yore.
The colour palette is highlighted by details of copper, with cable guides and other minute details finished in the rose metal. A transparent plexiglass chain guard, chrome Bates headlight, and baby indicators completes the detailing.
The stance of the bike was dropped from its lofty standard height with eight centimetres trimmed from the forks and a new shorter shock supplanting the rear. The resulting geometry yields an incredibly rideable bike that relishes drifting its 17″ wheels on the rough stuff. Short hand made pipes finish with an under slung exhaust to supply the inevitably throaty soundtrack.
The Dominator craze shows no sign of waning as each one seems to showcase a new individual take on the platform and the donor prices continue to rise. No doubt Vertigo70 have just inspired further bouts of planning and ebay searching with their floating tailed tracker showcasing the pure soul of the breed.
See more from Vertigo70 on their Bikeshed page and discover many hours of Dominator themed distraction right across the Bikeshed pages. Got a favourite yet?
So far, motorcycle customiser Axel Budde has based his café racer creations on Moto Guzzis – but his 10th ‘Kaffeemaschine’ began its life as a Yamaha…
The donor Yamaha SR500 was given its radical transformation into a desirable café racer under Budde’s ‘Kaffeemaschine’ label, with support from Hamburg-based marque specialist Kedo. “Although the SR has been around for more than 35 years and all possible customisation styles exist, I've only seen a few SRs coherently given the café racer makeover,” says Budde. His company not only fashions a new aluminium tank and seat to complete the conversion, but also puts around 250 man-hours into perfecting the smaller and more intricate details. The final result is named ‘Mezzomille’ (meaning ‘half-thousand’), and mimics the style of the late 1970s.
It’s a question many people have been asking since the car was unveiled in December. Blue? Grey? Blue-grey?
The car’s colour is officially known as ‘Hyundai i20 WRC Blue’, but don’t try asking for it in the Korean brand’s dealerships. It doesn’t exist. “Not yet,” notes Hyundai-Shell WRT’s spokesperson. “Later, it will be used for the Hyundai range’s high-performance models.”
Although you can’t choose this shade for your new i20, you may still spot one on the road: “All our company cars have been painted in the same colour as the rally cars. At each European round of the championship, there will be a dozen or so for team members, the crews, etc. It works out cheaper than to rent a quantity of cars each time.”
Some colleagues see the colour as grey, others blue. Jérôme, for example, plumps for ‘lilac blue’, but Autosport’s David is certain it’s ‘powder blue’, while German writer Christian says ‘Frangfrage’, which means a question that doesn’t have a correct answer. Certain wittier observers (no names!) suggest it’s an undercoat the team is using until it gets round to applying the definitive finish…
That said, a quick survey among the photographers and cameramen reveals that the colour stands out well in pictures. “It gives the cars a dynamic stance. We haven’t had any negative feedback.” The only problem is that it’s almost impossible to have unity of colour across the whole team. For example, the stylist in charge of the team’s clothing has yet to find an exact match for use with fabrics...
The livery of the Hyundai i20 WRCs is the work of the Hyundai Motor Europe Design Center (HMEDC) led by Jochen Werner. Along with the trucks and motorhomes, the third car which is due to run under the ‘Hyundai Motorsport N’ banner from Portugal onwards will feature the same shade in order to ensure a clear, coherent visual signature.
Depuis sa présentation officielle en décembre dernier, beaucoup se posent cette question. Est-ce un bleu ? Un gris ? Un bleu-gris ? Et d’ailleurs comment prononce-t-on Hyundai ?
La teinte s’appelle officiellement « Hyundai i20 WRC Blue ». Mais ne la cherchez pas dans le nuancier du constructeur, elle n’existe pas. « Pas encore », souligne le porte-parole du team Hyundai-Shell WRT. « Ce bleu devrait être la couleur des futurs modèles haute-performance de la marque Hyundai, qui se prononce comme on veut mais surtout pas Hyund…aîe ! Ca, c’est du passé. »
Donc pour l’instant, impossible de commander une Hyundai i20 de ce coloris chez votre concessionnaire, mais il en existe néanmoins quelques exemplaires qui circulent : « Toutes nos voitures de fonction ont été peintes aux couleurs des voitures de course. Sur chaque rallye européen, nous en acheminons une dizaine par plateau pour les membres du team, les pilotes… Cela revient moins cher que de louer des véhicules sur place. »
Certains parlent de bleu, d’autres de gris. Jérôme voit un bleu-lilas, David, d’Autosport, est sûr qu’il s’agit d’un « powder blue ». Notre confrère allemand Christian assure que c’est « Frangfrage », une question à laquelle la réponse ne sera jamais la bonne. Les plus moqueurs (dont on taira les noms) pensent qu’il s’agit d’une couche d’apprêt en attendant la peinture définitive…
Il n’empêche qu’après un rapide sondage auprès des photographes et vidéastes professionnels, cette couleur passe plutôt bien. « Le résultat donne un style assez « pêchu ». Nous n’avons pas eu d’échos négatifs ». Seul hic, il est quasi impossible d’avoir une unité de couleur dans le team. Par exemple, le styliste chargé de confectionner la ligne de vêtements n’a jamais pu retrouver la teinte exacte.
La déco des Hyundai i20 WRC a été confiée au département Hyundai Motor Europe Design Center (HMEDC) et au designer Jochen Werner. La troisième Hyundai i20 WRC engagée sous l’entité Hyundai Motorsport N à partir du Rallye du Portugal sera elle aussi peinte de ce bleu-gris – de même que les camions et motorhomes - pour avoir une signature visuelle cohérente.
The Ryca CS-1 is a bolt-on cafe racer kit for the Suzuki Savage that’s been in steady production for just over 10 years, the bike has become something of a cult classic in the USA and Suzuki dealers are now getting onboard to produce them in-house, selling right off the showroom floor.
The CS-1 project started when Casey and Ryan, the founders of Ryca, realised that the Suzuki Savage cafe racer they were building was something that a huge number of people would be interested in building for themselves, if they could simplify the process and create an easy to assemble kit.
A few months later the Ryca CS-1 Cafe Racer rolled out of the garage with a fully catalogued build process and blueprints for the slew of bespoke parts required to build it. A website was created and before you know it, orders began to roll in. Skip forward a few years and there have been hundreds of Ryca kits sent to all four corners of the globe, Casey and Ryan have been featured on Jay Leno’s Garage (video available above) where an initially skeptical Leno was converted to an enthusiastic brand ambassador by the end of the clip.
With pricing starting at $2,795 for the Cafe Racer Kit and decent, secondhand Suzuki Savages selling for somewhere in the region of a few hundred to just over $1,000 – the Ryca CS-1 is a highly affordable motorcycle for those who aren’t shy of pulling out the tool kit and getting their hands dirty.
With the stock 650cc single-cylinder engine producing approximately 35 to 40hp at the rear wheel the Ryca CS-1 is a bike that will more than happily keep pace with modern traffic, and with a wet weight of well under 400lbs it’s a nimble, great handling bike well suited to urban environments.
In the early morning it was difficult to spot where the rally stage course might be around the perimeter roads of Stoneleigh Park in the UK. There was a bit of hazard tape and some sections of metal fencing, but that was it. There was grass. Clean, pristine tarmac. Silence. There wouldn’t be for long… Fast forward an hour, and mud was flying, tyres were screeching and the unmistakeable pop and whine of turbocharged engines filled the air. The Race Retro rally stage was go! Now the course was unmissable, in every sense.
This year saw an even greater selection of cars come out to play at Race Retro, and once again there were some hero cars, rarities and surprises thrown into the mix. There is simply no such thing as a boring rally stage, no matter the size.
The stage might only take less than a minute to blast round, but that’s not to say it lacked challenge, or that those taking part weren’t putting the hammer down. And this was despite Race Retro being a theoretically non-competitive outing ahead of the active season to come.
Best of all, from a selfish point of view, I had a couple of potential rides lined up for the afternoon, making it even more of a thrill seeing the cars circulate. Minor problems aside, I would be in the passenger seats of some pretty special machinery.
The previous day, I’d watched the warehouse being used as Parc Fermé for the rally squads at Race Retro begin to fill up. Pristine machinery rolled in: glorious Mk1 Escorts, Sierras, Lancias, Audis and more.
Trailer after trailer had arrived to disgorge its contents, which offered the added thrill of also hearing the cars fired up for the first time. This Lancia Beta replica was sounding utterly ferocious even being driven at low speed.
The cars kept rolling in through the day, the hall echoing with the different engine notes and giving the attending crowd a fine idea of what would be in store when the action kicked off the next morning.
As I mentioned in the previous Race Retro story, the event was celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Metro 6R4, that most extreme of compact Group B cars, and a trio would be out on the stage, all with different build origins and provenance.
‘Jumping’ Jeff Williamson’s is in its original 1985 specification – a fact made even more special by the addition of Jimmy McRae’s signature to the driver’s door!
There was a definite frisson in the air, as we all knew that the next day we’d soon see these cars in full, sideways action. Slightly older or slightly newer, they’d pretty much all be pushed. This was an interesting, and unexpected, model to see: an original Triumph Spitfire in tarmac rally spec, joining the three (soon to be four) Spitfire Le Mans race cars on display in the main halls. This Spitfire had been flying round stages for 50 years!
Come Saturday morning, the majority of the 51 entries were coaxed into life and made their way to the assembly paddock, by the stage start. The Audis in particular sounded unhappy and agricultural at low revs: these are cars that need to be ragged to get the best out of them, as with so many Group B machines.
Many of the cars were ‘hella flush’ with lighting packs; completely superfluous given the clear day, but you just can’t beat the look of these lamp pods. I wonder if they’ll come back into fashion on road cars; that was all the rage in the ’80s!
The paddock was bustling with people, but the actual cars were left pretty much to themselves. There were no preening owners pushing spectators away – in fact, the reverse: everyone was open to chatting with fans, opening doors and bonnets on request, when not catching up with other drivers and teams.
I loved that you could see a pair of Minis lined up opposite a pair of 911s. On the stage, although people would get out of the way if caught, there definitely wasn’t a case of more expensive cars getting priority though. Speed would be everything.
I got over-excited when I spotted this from the back, thinking from a distance that it was a Saab 900, but of course it turned out to be a Skoda 130LR. The modest Skoda was a surprising success at national level, its lightweight, 1.3-litre straight four engine and rear-wheel drive making it potent in the period following the demise of the more well-known Group B monsters.
Just one Subaru would be taking part, but a rather special one, and with a rather special driver. The car was an ex-Colin McRae/Derek Ringer Legacy, in which the pair had won the 1991 and ’92 British Rally Championships. The driver was David Llewellyn, who coincidentally had won the BRC in the two years preceding McRae. He’s returned to historic rallying in recent times, and proved that he’s not lost any of his speed – he was an absolute beast around the stage!
This was another car I had a personal interest in, having shot the 6R4 for an upcoming Speedhunters feature during the preceding week (along with the Renault 5 Turbo) – and it being another car I had lined up to ride shotgun…
But then there was the Lancia Delta S4. Oh, those Lancia stripes… The mid-engine S4 wasn’t necessarily beautiful in the way that Lancias often were, but by god it was effective. It has a kind of sea monster look to it, like a shark…
The driver of this bespoke replica had impressively got into the spirit of things, with a matching race suit.
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Russell Brookes is an iconic driver in British rallying – always identifiable by his yellow Andrews Heat For Hire livery – and another two times winner of the British series. He’s also another driver who is simply unstoppable; he’s permanently stapled to historic rally events, it would seem.
His mid-’80s Group B Manta still looks the part, and his right foot wasn’t showing signs of age…
Each car out would do three laps before pulling back into the paddock, so the startline was a scene of constant activity as cars waited for the marshals to spot a gap and release them. First gear, revs up, bang the clutch up and you’re off into the storm!
Lined up behind, this little lot. What a perfect day.
I’ve become used to seeing Porsches on tarmac stages, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Group B Ferrari!
The 308 GTB Rallye, developed by Michelotto, was being absolutely thrown about at a frightening pace. Its aggressive profile and prodigious speed causing more than one car to take to the grass. But what a polite Ferrari driver.
There are now several groups dedicated to keeping the legacy of Group B rallying alive, with the Rallying With Group B and Slowly Sideways team at the fore. But there was nothing slow about how sideways the cars were at Race Retro.
This Talbot Sunbeam in particularly was putting on a fantastic display for the crowd – and its passengers! There was no straight more than 50 yards long, the track narrow and each corner was pretty much square, meaning that you were seeing cars flicking sideways all around you.
First the tail hanging out left, kicking up mud, then slewing right over the loose.
This was happening all around. One of the advantages of wearing the fluorescent vest was being able to stand in the middle of a patch of grass and literally pivot around 45 degrees at a time to see a different corner and different car. A dizzying, exhilarating experience.
Some of the sections were relatively fast, but don’t let this shot fool you. The majority of the course was made up of tarmac tracks barely a car’s width wide; this was one of the only corners where you could get the speed up and fully drift the car through.
More seriously, in a forlorn effort to slow cars down, hay bale chicanes had been put on several straights and worse, metal rails stuck on apexes to prevent cars cutting them.
Those metal rails would look damn close from the passenger seat as you’re going sideways… Although several hay bales were mown down during proceedings, I was pleased that I didn’t see any metal barriers down – and therefore no damaged cars.
The grass on either side was quickly chewed up and deposited over the roads, eventually covering the majority of the opening tight section, which merely meant that the drivers could get even more sideways.
As ever, the best way to appreciate this kind of event is to keep on moving around, enjoying all the angles that even a short and twisty demonstration run can provide. Ideally from behind one of the sparse trees!
Quite often a car would get squirrelly under braking or acceleration and threaten to spear off the track – sending clutches of photographers squawking for cover…
But mostly it was pure pleasure, soaking up the best that rallying has to offer, controlled environment or not. Replicas and originals played side by side, those Audi quattros rumbling away at low revs before the turbines spun up to punch them out of corners; they were really suffering on the tight course.
The squat, compact 6R4s looked particularly potent, their short wheelbase and potent power lifting them up under acceleration and burying the nose under braking.
The third 6R4 had a much more spacious rear than the Clubman derived V6 cars it ran alongside: this one mounted a much lighter and more compact Honda Civic Type R engine, pushing out 315hp – in a car weighing 800kg.
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All too soon the morning session was over: an hour gone in a flash.
Most of the cars remained in the paddock, like this space frame Lotus Esprit, originally built as a rallycross prototype.
The lunchtime break allowed some of the more complex cars to return to Parc Fermé for a spot of TLC – and also gave a great opportunity to see under the skin of one or two of them. The S4 had its cavernous rear deck propped up, allowing a fantastic view of its twin-charged 1.8-litre inline four cylinder.
But soon enough it was time for a second fix and the afternoon session: more mud! More howling quattros! More simply sideways action!
This Mazda RX7 Group B car was another hero of the day; it’s an ‘Evolution’ model realised by Group B Motorsport, who based the car off an original 1985 model. It’s their interpretation of what a factory Evo could have looked like, with an improved roll cage, rear axle and sequential ’box.
The short wheelbase S1 was another car that would rear up under power; it really was a howling thug of a car.
The Beta that had sounded so good at low revs sounded even more glorious when singing on full power: a proper Italian shriek!
But then it was my turn to put a helmet on. My first stop would be alongside Bob Beales in his glorious VW Beetle, that so entertained me the year before.
From the cockpit, it didn’t feel like the 1303S I owned as a first car… And it definitely didn’t sound like it.
I’m not sure my Beetle had the power to make it up a hill, let alone get as sideways as Bob managed in his rather more potent one. Although it lacked actual *grunt*, and could be outrun over a lap by a lot of the other cars, it’s one of the most entertaining cars out there – and who couldn’t love seeing a humble Beetle battle it out with quattros and Lancias?
Second up for me would be Andrew Cooper’s authentic Renault 5 Turbo: a maelstrom of bangs and cracks only let down by the fact that it was running on three cylinders… However, that didn’t make my experience any less enjoyable. I’ll talk more about the incredible feeling of being in one these cars in an upcoming feature, and likewise with the neck-snapping 6R4.
As the sun began to sink in the winter sky, the afternoon session drew to a close, with drivers trying to get their last runs under their belts.
Disappointment was matched by the desire to see these cars out in a forest, in their natural environment, in the near future. And to get a ride in the R5 when it’s singing on full song.
Eventually just one sound reverberated around the park, as the sole remaining car put in its final flourish. David Llewellyn continued to push his Legacy harder and harder, making sure that the maximum area of Stoneleigh Park was awash with mud by his mission end. After its third tour, the Legacy took the exit road and quiet descended over the park once again – at least until the next day. Rallying’s legacy is still very much alive and well in these drivers’ hands.
