Is it a good time to launch a new motorcycle manufacturing company? Is there a market for an a new All American Sport Tourer?
Partners Lee Conn (Health Care Industry background) and Brian Case (former developer and designer of the Confederate Wraith) believe so. In 2008 they incorporated Motus Motorcycles (motus means motion in Latin) and polled bikers who ride long distance and got the confirmation that above all they want engine reliability and aerodynamics in a lightweight machine.
Will 2010 be a breakout year for the Motus MST-01? Prototype engine is a proprietary 140″ fuel injected, liquid cooled V4 using a single chain driven camshaft with pushrods, 2 valves per compact cylinder. It is mounted longitudinally and used as stress member. Rider position is upright on an aerodynamically enhanced body with hard bags and a trunk. Performance, comfort and range is the trilogy that Motus wants to provide to sport touring riders. To follow…Motus Motorcycles.
Good luck with the new Honda Pacific Coast….
Very interesting concept / prototype!
I has always been a big fan of the Wraith!
So good luck on this new story!
Very cool Trellis Frame , reminds me of the old martin Frames.
Shape doesn’t look too good to me.
If only manufacturing motorcycles could be as simple as coming up with Motus MST-01 (sic.), designing a logo for the T shirts and making a couple of CAD drawings.
You dumb *ss nay-sayers. Watch out, Victory…
140″ is a very attractive .
Capt. Bobbo hasn’t been following their engine development. If you can find a t-shirt on their website, let me know ’cause I’d like one.
They are the first to use GDI on a modern motorcycle engine. Triple digit torque, v4 sound, trellis frame, hotrod engine layout….waiting to see the rest. This bike has great potential
Really bad timing,it will go by the way of Excelsior-Henderson…………………
No way anyone can predict the outcome. If I could be correct 50% of the time I could make W. Buffett look like a poor man!
Engine designing by Katech
Chassis & various components engineering by Pratt & Miller
From my own brief look into their proposed motorcycle;
it appears that they are doing all the proper indepth research into the design.
So, from strictly my own viewpoint, I find it a bit unfair & uneducated
for people to cut them off at the knees before production has started.
An American designed and produced machine that is actually useful,
and not but another niche market, fat tired, rigid, very short distance showpiece;
is something we all as motorcyclists should admire and encourage.
I have made a living for many years being involved the Wisconsin brand
motorcycle, but always enjoy seeing new machines being produced in the USA,
and especially types that may be sold to a broader market.
Viable new business possibilities ( which will certainly need employees) in the USA
is what this country needs now more than ever.
I wish them all the best.
very interesting. lets see how it performs against the Kawasaki and Suzuki.
Thanks Cyril. We were wondering why we had a bit of a spike on our website this week. I did notice you mentioned the engine was “a proprietary 140″ fuel injected”. While it is in fact proprietary, and a clean sheet super-smallblock design, the displacement is only 100 ci (1650cc). The fuel system uses gasoline direct injection. The GDI is not something we were originally going to do, mainly due to cost of dev. But we figured it out, and the prototype is now running a closed loop GDI.
The thing to remember on the displacement is that 1650cc is in the range of normal big twin cruisers. Except, they use huge, coffee can-size pistons to get that volume. Nothing wrong with that, that’s where they get their character. The kmv4 divides that volume into 4, so we have smaller bores, shorter stroke. So we’ve got a balanced pushrod v4 with a lopey cam that’ll scream to 8,000. Not sure if it’ll be on the same playground as the euro/asian sport-tourers, but we love all those bikes too.
-Brian