mercredi 26 novembre 2014
Royal Purple Outperformer
To Roland Sands, "Life is just one big project. You got to hit it every day." The custom motorcycle builder is featured in this second installment of the Royal Purple Outperformer Series. Then click here to meet more Outperformers: http://www.royalpurpleconsumer.com/ou...
Dainese 36060 Vintage
IT WAS 
1970. I WANTED TO TRAVEL, AND I BOUGHT THAT BULTACO...
In 1972 in Molvena, a small village in the hills near Marostica (the city of chess), I made my first pair of leather motocross trousers. A small workshop was home to the beginning of Dainese’s production of motorcycle clothing. A few years later, I contacted Giacomo Agostini and suggested him to race in one of the leather suits that had been refined by Elio Forte, my legendary pattern maker; the suit provided Agostini increased protection, and from that day on Dainese has been a part of motorcycle racing history, securing undisputed leadership in safety and performance wear.
Now with 40 years of experience, Dainese has set out to reconquer the essence of its origins by making stylish daywear for the motorcycle enthusiast, applying the same passion that drove me back in the early days.
Once again, Molvena-36060, Vicenza, Italy-is the starting point for an unforgettable trip.
VIDEO. Human bat opens WEC Bahrain
Red Bull daredevil Jokke Sommer opens the World Endurance Championship round in Bahrain with fellow athlete Abdo Feghali by landing on the Bahrain International Circuit after a 140kph run in his wing suit.
That’s one way to make an entrance.
Grandstand attendees at the recent World Endurance Championship round in Bahrain – all 12/13 of them – were treated to a typically ‘extreme’ display by Red Bull drift artist Abdo Feghali and daredevil Jokke Sommer, who flew onto the grid just before the formation lap in a Red Bull liveried ‘wing-suit’.
Sommer hit speeds of up to 140kph after bailing out of the helicopter hovering over the Bahrain International Circuit before landing in the donut marks left by Feghali (former Guinness World Record Holder and current Red Bull Car Park Drift lynchpin) in his Ford Mustang drift machine just moments earlier.
The penultimate round of this year’s WEC championship was won by Toyota teammates Alexander Wurz, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin in the #7 TS040 Hybrid but it was Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi in the sister #8 machine who, despite only finishing 11th after alternator issues, took the plaudits by taking the WEC Driver’s crown one race early.
Source – Red Bull
SARTORIE MECCANICHE LIDO
Francesco and Paolo are cousins and business partners, co-owning Sartorie Meccaniche – Mechanical Tailors. To read more about their background have a look at a previous build featured in the Shed. Hailing from Bergamo in northern Italy one could jump to the conclusion that with the proximity to Lake Como and Moto Guzzi country, that the guys would be fettling shaft drive v-twins with a patriotic exhaust note. But no, this is the slightly less glamorous Japanese version.
A dear friend of Francesco and Pablo offered up his father’s CX500 for a makeover. The bike had already been treated to some mods but not ones that could make the best of the sublime roads around the lakes. Ape hangers bars, and some. You get the picture.
Naked, understated and more in keeping with current trends would be the brief, and sartorially elegant of course. A fair task for a Plastic Maggot. The obvious place to start was lighting, junking the cumbersome searchlight sized items and replacing with neat LEDs and a smarter headlight.
The front mudguard was removed, permanently and the rear replaced with a shortened, powder coated version. Whilst at it, the wheels, side panels, shock outers, forks and bars were given a coat of the black stuff.
Keeping things local, the paint colours were sourced form Fiat’s 1960’s range, the two-tone breaking up a fairly large tank. And Hondas always look good with a white stripe. Three layer, multi-density foam on a full length seat offers long range comfort for rider and passenger, and lets face it, with those roads to play on riding days will be long ones.
The CX isn’t known for retina dislodging acceleration so there isn’t a lot of point trying to find extra ponies in a field full of mules. A soundtrack though can make all the difference and a v-twin has an acoustic magic. Shorter more open megaphones reverberate nicely without upsetting anyone snoozing off a large lakeside pranzo,
Sensible bars replace the Peter Fonda specials with new controls and vintage grips completing the cockpit transformation.
A simple but well executed build that might not look dramatic by today’s custom standards but the guys had a task in undoing the aesthetically and ergonomically challenged efforts of the previous owner.
Francesco & Paulo post some pretty good stuff on their Facebook page so head there for updates and the website for photos of previous builds.
The Bike Shed
Test Ride : DOMIRACER
2014 Norton Domiracer
Photos by Ian Jubb / Original article by Phil West
Photos by Ian Jubb / Original article by Phil West
by Phil West, executive director of Motorcycle News,published on theMotorcycle USA website.
"Let’s get the bad bits out of the way immediately: The cynic in me knows that, essentially, the Domiracer is ‘just’ a rehashed, 80-horsepower pushrod Twin. It comes with no modern, electronic trickery, is barely road legal, our test bike had a slight electric fault, there’s not much steering lock and, even if (unlike most of us) you can afford its £24 grand price (£26K if you want a road legal version), you can’t buy one anyway. The 50 examples being built have already been snapped up. But I don’t care about any of that. Having stood next to it, smitten by its sheer beauty and sublime detailing. Having been aurally assaulted by its cacophonous open exhaust. And having ridden it (all too briefly, mind, but still the first person in the world outside the factory to do so), I’m not ashamed to admit the ‘Domi’ has stolen a big chunk of my heart. But it’s not love we’re talking. Nothing so sweet and civilized – it’s sheer, animal, passionate LUST. I can’t think of any other machine of recent years that gives such an enormous sensory experience – and on so many levels. Actually, scratch that, there are two: Ducati’s full-blown, ultra-exotic and harmonic Panigale R, all £27 grand of it, and MV’s £19,999 F4 RR, both of which look good, sound good, ride good, too. But, on second thoughts, nah, I don’t want either of them as much as I want the Domi and can’t get as much out of them, either".
"Shortly after arriving at Norton’s sumptuous new HQ in the grounds of Donington Hall just outside Donington Park, photographer Ian Jubb and I were ushered through to the capacious, carpeted workshop where the gleaming Domiracer stood on its paddock stand, center stage. Even at silent standstill it’s a wonder. They say beauty is subjective, that it’s in the eye of the beholder, but the Domiracer is one of those rare exceptions: It’s unequivicably, unambiguously, no doubts, no questions stunning".
The eye-grabbing centerpiece is that Tank, of course: alluring alloy at its most voluptuous; waisted and curvaceous with an appointment between your legs. (Don’t tell me there’s no sex appeal here). But there’s so, so much more. In profile you’re almost as instantly drawn to the Featherbed-alike frame. That shoulder curve below the seat is ‘just so’, purebred, almost regal, but then the Spondon swingarm and monoshock reminds this is no classic, no retro. This is a Featherbed for the here and now; a Norton café racer for the 21st century. And you can stuff your dribbly, shonky old Tritons…
Hand-in-hand with the modern monoshock is the cutting edge carbon fiber, lashings of CNC-milled-and-hand-polished alloy and top-spec, state-of-the-art cycle parts. Golden Ohlins and radial Brembos never fail to enamor. Here they’re the pearls and diamonds adorning Venus de Milo. Designer Simon Skinner says there were two main thrusts to this labor of love, a very personal, pet project that began in the middle 2011. The first was to get the stance, the posture of the bike right. “We tried to make it look more ‘butch’, more aggressive, like a British bulldog if you like,” he told MCN. “That’s why the front is pushed down, with the headlamp back and down, the rear raised up.” The second was to blend the old and new just so. “It’s NOT a retro bike,” emphasized Skinner. “The mix of old and new is very intentional and trying to get the balance of those two right was very important.” Personally, I think they’ve got it spot on. The jewel in the crown is detailing and touches that take the Domiracer above merely a special-framed café racer with well-appointed suspension and brakes. The special, delectable milled and polished alloy top yoke and heel plates are the most obvious examples, but the whole bike’s littered with them. They’re also touches that take the Domiracer into true exotica territory. Being CNC-cut then hand-finished they’d be too expensive to produce for conventional mass manufacturers, yet impossible for specials builders, too. In short, the Domiracer, mouth-watering as it is, is the best demonstration yet of what Norton can do.
And all of that’s before the thing’s even been fired up.(...) At low revs the big Twin burbles and blarts with a richness and vibrancy that can only make you smile. Then the merest blip of light throttle has it racing violently up to five and with it a whole orchestra of sound and volume is unleashed. Brass? Strings? Timpani? The whole bloody lot of ‘em and all bass and treble and so, so loud. Then, on the over-run, sucking and spitting like a bath plughole draining its last. There’s not much point revving above five, but there’s lots of joy in just blipping and blipping. The whole aural experience is intoxicating and addictive.
But the biggest surprise of all is how the Domi rides. That Norton’s new baby looks so good is reason enough to want it. That it sounds so primeavally delicious is the unexpected bonus. There was almost no need for it to be a decent bike as well. But that’s not even the half of it. This being the first completed example (hence the ‘No. 1’ sticker on the carbon airbox) it perhaps unsurprisingly is going to remain the property of Norton owner Stuart Garner himself. Which is why, leathered and helmeted, and astride the Domi ready to head out onto the road for the first time, it’s his parting words rather than the exhausts’ deafening thunder which were ringing in my ears the most. “If you crash it, don’t bother coming back!” I think he was joking. With hindsight, the Domi was so well behaved (slight starter motor glitch and limited steering lock aside) there was never really any danger of that. Although the Norton’s café racer stance appears fairly extreme, the riding position offered by the lowered ace bars and raised and moved back footpegs is no real problem, even for this slightly aging six-footer. The thinly-padded solo seat and tank rear is slim, its weight fairly neutral, its controls reached naturally. A handful of easy-enough clutch ,a prod down into the first of five ratios, a slight blip and clutch slip and we’re away, easy as pie. Within 200 yards I was out of the HQ’s grounds, onto the open road and starting to feed it revs and gears.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s no performance revolution here. Norton’s pushrod Twin, despite what the fiercesome exhaust note may suggest, is no firebrand. Its 80-odd horses, progressive delivery and slightly clunky and sloppy, ‘old school’ nature reminds most of a worn, air-cooled, two-valve, Ducati L-Twin, so this baby’s not going topside of 125 mph any time soon. But it’s still enough to excite, please and, more importantly, invigorate. Best of all, it’s enough to let the real star turn of the whole plot – the Domi’s chassis – shine. To be honest, I hadn’t expected much of the new Featherbed, Ohlins or no, hadn’t really thought about it, even. I was too distratcted by the look and the loud. But after only briefly letting it stretch its legs into third then fourth gears on the Derbyshire A-roads the whole plot’s class was already shining through – a racer-ish firm but refined ride, utter stability, instinctive steering and quality brakes. We didn’t have much chance to push the Domi hard, of course. But that’s not really the point. Few will – or want to. But on our main photo corner – the one turn I did time after time, faster and faster – the Norton’s chassis was so calm and composed I’m sure it could’ve done it 30 mph faster without a flinch. And all to that wonderous cacophany bouncing off the farm walls and in the reflected gleaming glory of that ally tank. Some bike, this.
New Nortons don’t come along very often, especially ones with featherbed frames and looks like this. That is enough, in itself, for the Domiracer to be considered special. The fact that its 83% British with much of it (frame, tank, pipes, engine and final assembly) all done on site at Donington, is another big plus. Then there’s the look (which makes the 961 now seem old hat), the wonderous noise, the quality and the components and the ride itself. Best of all, though, I reckon, is the price. For £24,000 you are getting something very special indeed. Or should that be were, ‘cos sadly they’re all snapped up already. I don’t blame those buyers one little bit. The Domiracer is a truly great bike – not great because of its abilities, dynamics or performance. Great because of the wonderously rich biking experience it delivers, Compared to this every modern superbike is flat, bland and sterile. The Domiracer, meanwhile, is one of my bikes of the year. Phil West –Motorcycle News UK
Main specs by the builder. Air-cooled, Pushrod, 4v Parallel Twin engine, 961cc. 80 HP @ 7700 rpm (approx). Torque: 80 NM @ 6000rpm (approx). 5-speed. Tubular steel ‘Featherbed style’ with tubular steel Spondon swingarm. Ohlins 43mm inverted forks adjustable for preload, compression and rebound. Single Ohlins TTX monoshock with adjustable ride height, preload, compression and rebound. Dry Weight: 386 pounds (175 kg). Front Brake: Dual 320mm Brembo discs with Brembo four-piston radially-mounted callipers. Rear Brake: Single 220mm Brembo disc with twin-piston Brembo caliper. Tires: 120/70 x 17 front; 180/55 x 17 rear. Fuel Capacity: 5 gallons (19 liters). Seat Height: 32 inch (813mm).
via Inazuma Café
The 1970 Holden Torana GTR-X concept almost became Australia's 240Z
It wasn’t only the inspired designers of the Italian coachbuilders churning out wedge-shaped concepts in the 1970s. At the start of the decade, Australian manufacturer Holden produced an attractive doorstop of its own – and it very nearly made production…
Based on the relatively traditional Torana GTR XU-1 coupé, the concept was not only given a ground-up redesign using in-vogue features (a pointed nose, steeply raked windscreen and pop-up headlamps), but also technology that the GM-owned brand had not yet used.
Simple and seductive
The beautifully simplistic body was crafted from glassfibre, and it was the first Holden to be equipped with disc brakes all round. However, unlike the Hurricane concept of the previous year, the GTR-X concept was still potentially feasible for production.
Production potential
Three prototypes were built, and Holden was serious enough about the car to produce plenty of promotional material. Ultimately, though, the domestic market was deemed too small to justify the outlay attached to a production run. A shame, as the shapely Australian might have made quite a rival for the likes of the Datsun 240Z.
Two of the prototypes were destroyed; the sole remaining example can be found at Holden’s Melbourne headquarters.
Photos / Video: Holden
Opel's 1965 Experimental GT was a baby Corvette that made a big impact
The famous coachbuilders had long been producing one-off concept cars to showcase their talents – but with the 1965 Experimental GT concept, Opel became the first European manufacturer to build its own…
Initially conceived as a testbed for engine and chassis components to be employed at Opel’s new high-speed test track in Dudenhofen, the Gran Tourisme concept was never intended to reach production. But when it was first shown to the public at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show, it was welcomed with a warm reception from European show-goers.
Too attractive for the test track
Boasting a scaled-down version of the ‘Coke Bottle’ design pioneered by its Corvette cousins – including a tapered nose, bulging haunches and round rear lights – the GT was a pretty little car. It wasn’t only about the looks though; the car had relatively sophisticated aerodynamics for its time, including the pop-up headlamps that would become so popular the following decade. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite share the same muscle as its American counterparts – it was powered by a 1.9-litre Rekord engine, albeit tuned.
Ultimately though, the GT received such a strong response that it became the first European concept car to make the leap into series production – a big statement from a car whose cries might have been forever restricted by the perimeter walls of a test track.
Photos: Opel
You can find numerous classic Opels for sale in the Classic Driver Market.
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