Today at the New York International Auto Show Confederate Motors is announcing the launch of the new C3, X132 Hellcat.Confederate Motors state that the new C3 X 132 will be the lightest, fastest, toughest, smoothest, most beautiful Hellcat ever produced. The company is already selling a 1st version of the Hellcat and 2 other models, the Wraith & The Fighter, all with a very “organic shape” and a huge “bone structure”.
Confederate and its President Matt Chambers have always been motorcycle anti-establishment. In its form, this new C3X132 Hellcat is like his brothers largely influenced by the Bauhaus architecture style. Simple, raw, minimalist, timeless, without any compromise and celebrating on the road the art of the rebellion. The design is based on the S&S Wedge motor wrapped in a frame conceived and manufactured by the custom chassis and frame experts of Rolling Thunder. Still in development, the probability is high that the front end will be of the type Girder, but of course of a design that you never saw before. The C3,X132 Hellcat price is set to target the top 10% of Harley Davidson buyers (read those buying Harley-Davidson CVO’s models, probably in a price range of $39,000 to $42,000) who are American motorist purists and who would like to reveal their individualist singularity. Sales objectives are set for about 70 models a year. First deliveries are expected to begin October 31, 2010 (Halloween night), from Confederate new facilities in the Art District of New Orleans. At the same time, Confederate is leaning towards a distribution via an urban boutique retail franchise.
Today S&S Cycle and Confederate Motors will also announce a long-term strategic plan that will leverage the complementary strengths of both companies to penetrate the luxury motorcycle market segments. The alliance will include co-development of a motorcycle power plant mounting system in an effort to supply highly differentiated motorcycles and technology sharing, with a planned production launch in July of 2010.
Wonderful.
If there is a way to sell 50K motorcycles in this economy, it’s the right way.
Niche market. Hope it works for Confederate.
Hey, Cyril. Can’t wait to see a picture of the completed beast. Publish a.s.a.p.
Great to see the X-Wedge mated to a compact drivetrain.
Do you guys think this can work? I mean combining the S&S engine / transmission / frame together like that? I don’t think this engine was built to be used in that kind of application. I know that other v-twin engines were are used like that (ducati, vincent) but I think theses egines were built with that application in mind.
What an awesome package. At first glance it looks like a bike after being in a serious accident! Love the exhaust system!
Good luck for the two companies, big project, amazing prototype cant´ wait to see it.
Exhaust under the engine.
A notable sport bike designer may claim of infringement. LOL
Kronos – good question, but I think there is some clever construction going on.
It looks like a machined part forms what would otherwise be the bottom of a cradle frame bolted very stoutly to the rest of the block (see right pictures above or on their site) .
I could be wrong, maybe the engine is partially used as a stressed part of the chassis? Confederate went nuts with their CNC on their Fighter model, so they very well may have developed a unit-construction type of a bottom-end. Good for them if they did… Big Twin engines could use unit-construction to open up chassis options. (not to mention more of a sporting, corner carving chassis)
another example: although Guzzis engines form part of the chassis, their engines are also not unit-construction with the transmission. The trans are strongly bolted to the block, which appears to be unit-construction, but they’re not.
I wish I could come up with something snide and cynical, but I can’t. This looks quite extraordinary actually, and I’m anxious to see it in person.
THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME !!!
What I see is simplistic ,clean and very tasteful. I hope that this first view of artistic taste doesn’t get mired in industrial / transformer parts
want one to ride with my headless horseman costume on hollowes eve!
“What I see is simplistic ,clean and very tasteful. I hope that this first view of artistic taste doesn’t get mired in industrial / transformer parts”
Exactly my thoughts.
If S&S could do an alternate crankcase for their X wedge and package it with a unitary compact transmission like this they would really open up a whole new market for their products.
Working with S&S for their 50th anniversary build we discussed a unit construction however at that time the US bike builders demanded a traditional transmission design half a mile behind the engine. As with our Indian Flathead engines we have the trans bolted up closely behind the engine making it a nice tight unit which allows us freedom of design when building our bike models. Our X-Wedge S&S 50th anniversary build had a special designed trans which allowed us to bolt it up closer to the engine creating a nice tightish unit. Glad to see S&S expanding new markets with this engine as it is an awesome engine.
Interestingly enough there always seems to be a market for expensive motorcycles, maybe not as big of a market but if one has something that seems worthy, they will come.
the only problem with using a huge v twin as a stressed member is the cylinder heads move up and down with cooling and heating some as much as 80 thou? i wish thses guys luck and the bottom end of the motor and exhuast and tight frame looks awesome…rocker box removal? dont know if you have to drop the motor or not…the bike looks incredible though. a usual stressed meber design uses water cooling and the head and block is bolted throughout the motor top to bottom…i just dont think gaskets or orings or seals would last on the top of an air cooled twin for long if you prevented it from movng? just a laymans thoughts. but the design is pure sickness
it will be interesting to see the rear header routing
In my view,S&S developed the very nice modern looking x-wedge,although the response is not as expected by S&S. At least they had broken the conventional design of v-twin engine.
And Rolling thunder making the frame of this beast, lets see how they come up with this frame design.
Goodluck Confederate.
I’m likely a buyer as Im a fan and owner…..BUT… gotta remember this is a rendering and much is to come like (A) “how are they going to handle the rear exhaust ? ” and (B) “what type of forks’ ?
and (C) “conventional gas tank placement” (D) “Fuel injection ?. The answers I received are that the rear exhaust may be a single pipe (huh ????) , the forks may or may not be girder a la Wraith but no decision as yet, conventional Hellcat type gas tank but in aluminum and yes to injection. The backbone may or may not be aluminum. My vote would be for an alloy frame and alloy tank both unpainted and alloy girders . How clean would an all mill finish alloy (ZERO PAINT or color) incl wheels look ? Listening in Birmingham ??? . Thankfully, the battery will be “real” al la Hellcat rather than the troublesome Wraith accumulator but the TBA placement seems troublesome.
J.T. Nesbitt back w/ Confederate? Nice looking concept so far.
LOOKS LIKE A SWING SET WITH A MOTOR
Beautiful way to harness an X-Wedge motor, and don’t worry Kronos, it looks the same underlying principle that Confederate used to integrate the powertrain on previous Hellcats: Matt Chamber’s big deal was to make a perfect crank to wheel spindle drivetrain with no flex, and bolting the transmission to a plate that bolts to the back of the motor, held firm by a structurally designed primary drive makes for a very strong, very compact system that we would have called ‘semi-unit’ fifty years ago. Don’t know whether the transmission is the same stacked case as used in the Hellcat that I rode in a pre-Katrina New Orleans, or a development of it, but the engineering certainly stacks up.
Looks like they’ve continued the structural integrity principles to maintaining a linked swing-arm spindle, but it’s hard to say from here. Really looking forward to seeing the finished bike: a return to the organic, flowing lines of the Confederate that went awry with JT’s departure – at least it does so far.
Hope they stick with the girder forks. It would be nice if they could open up the sides to let a little air in, but even slab-sided, they’re vastly better than springers and telescopic forks with the degree of control over rake and trail they afford: an excellent solution – and super-light in Carbon Fibre: you’ve really got to pick one up to believe it.
All power to the blue sky free-thinkers of the world.
Why would you say J.T. Nesbitt is back at Confederate? He never created anything that looked this cool, did he?