Few vehicles generate as much awe and mystique as the car-engined motorcycle. Here are a few memorable examples.
Here it is, probably the most elementary principle in vehicle performance: To go fast, stuff the largest possible engine into the smallest and lightest package available. Take that theory to its ridiculous and impractical extreme and you have the auto-engined motorcycle. It’s a great idea, not a good idea.
The theory has never quite lived up to its alleged potential, for a host of reasons. And today the approach is essentially obsolete, since motorcycle engines can now produce more than ample power in a usable package. But the car/bike mashup has produced some memorable machines with yards of character over the years. Here are a few.
In the late ’60s, the Münch Mammoth from Germany was a near-mythical beast, known to American enthusiasts mainly through fuzzy ads in the back pages of motorcycle magazines. Powered by an NSU four-cylinder passenger-car engine of 1200cc, the Mammoth sported a gargantuan front drum brake and twin automobile headlamps. The price was massive, too: $4000, the cost of a new Buick at the time, and distributor Floyd Clymer trumpeted the bike as the biggest, fastest, and greatest on the market. Noted collectors of these rare machines today include Jay Leno.
In 1935, Fred Luther of Los Angleles found fame in the workbench magazines of the day with this two-wheeler, a stretched Henderson X motorcycle chassis carrying a 1934 Plymouth PF powerplant. Luther predicted 300 mph for his creation, but with 125 hp at best available from the flathead six, the claim seems absurdly optimistic. When the engine kicked a rod out of the block on an early test run, Luther called close enough and parked the machine permanently.
Norm Grabowski (1933-2012) was a colorful and influential California hot rodder who helped to popularize the T-bucket roadster, but he built some crazy, far-out bikes too, including this 1941 Indian 4 with a Corvair flat six wedged into the frame tubes. There was no transmission; the Corvair clutch coupled directly to the Indian shaft drive. Actually, Grabowski built two Corvair-powered motorcycles in the ’60s and ’70s, and at least one of them still exists, reportedly.
On January 6, 2003 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Chrysler COO Wolfgang Barnhard rode the Dodge Tomahawk concept onto the Cobo Center stage before the baffled international media. A V10 Viper engine with a pair of narrow-tracked wheels attached to each end, more or less, the Tomahawk was not exactly a motorcycle, not exactly a car, but it did achieve its goal of generating reams of publicity for the Dodge and Viper brands.
Probably the best-known car-engine bikes in America are the string of Chevy-powered machines built by the Michigan Madman, EJ Potter. The farmer-slash-exhibition racer thrilled and amazed audiences at drag strips from coast to coast with seven different bikes that bore the names Bloody Mary and Widow Maker (pictured here and in lead photo). You can read more about EJ’s bikes and career here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, and you can see him in action on video here.
While car/automobile hybrids might not be dynamically practical, one Tennessee company has made them commercially successful. Since 1990, Boss Hoss Cycles has been turning out a line of massive (1200 lbs.) cruisers powered by small and big-block Chevy V8s, in both two-wheel and three-wheel trike versions. More recently, the bike maker has switched over to the lighter, more compact Chevy LS series V8, producing a more manageable package. Prices currently start in the upper-40 Large range.