The Triumph Bonneville TT Special was designed specifically for American desert racing, as well as TT Steeplechase, and Hare and Hound competition – interestingly the final specification of the model was developed not in England, but on the West Coast of the USA by Johnson Motors, commonly known as “JoMo”.
In the 1960s Triumph had two major importers in the USA, Johnson Motors on the West Coast and Triumph Corporation (“TriCor”) on the East Coast. As was often the case, the importers had a far better idea of exactly what American riders wanted than the boardroom at Triumph in England, and the Triumph Bonneville TT Special is evidence of this.
Some of the most popular forms of motorcycle racing in the USA in the 1950s and ’60s was dirt based – flat track, Hare and Hound, desert racing, and TT Steeplechase.
Dirt racing motorcycles of the time were typically road bikes that had been modified with lowered gearing, reduced weight, knobby tires, and wide handlebars – though this may sound primitive it was highly effective, and no country in the world was as good at building scramblers and desert sleds than the Brits.
There have been Le Mans racers, and there have been ambitious, potentially zany Le Mans racers, fantastical bouts of engineering and bizarre pseudo-innovation that its builders intended would lead
to something greater. Why else would they showcase their cars at the greatest endurance race in the world? Probably because it was there. (Jalopnik has a great rundown of the truly weird that ran down Mulsanne, including the car you see above.)
But perhaps the weirdest race car to ever enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans—the weirdest race car ever, one of the weirdest cars ever—may just be a missile-shaped, twin-boom race car with an oval steering wheel and a strange, brilliant, fantastical combination of catamaran, airplane, and motorcycle influences. It's a 1950s belly lake dragster, doubled. Born from jets? Baby, this thing is born from torpedo tubes.
Nardi, known today for wooden steering wheels and shift knobs, began life as a race car builder. Enrico Nardi was an accomplished mechanic and driver with Lancia, and he began building bizarre, Fiat-based sports cars powered by BMW motorcycle engines. There was the Nardi-Monaco Chichibio, named after co-creator Augusto Monaco's dog; a front-drive, V2-powered spindly little thing that could reach 80 kilometers per hour. Look at the 750 Nardi-Danese: exposed cylinder heads, one single headlight. Or the full-bodied Barchetta version, named the "Boby Sport" with a goofy grin for a grille and a bulging proboscis that makes various mid-2000s Mercedes-Benz sports cars look subtle. Laugh you will, and you just might, but these cars dominated local hillclimbs, whooping MG Midgets the whole way up.
Unsurprisingly, Nardi's most ambitious project carried on a proud tradition of the Strange.
Asymmetry is a highly underrated quality in design. It messes with our brains. Humans seek out symmetrical shapes in nearly everything we see: art and architecture, leaves on the ground, even our own faces (which are not at all symmetrical). And certainly in cars, where any bold dash of asymmetry is relegated mostly to hood scoops and ephemera: the Ford SVO, the Mazda RX-7, the hood bulge on a Mitsubishi Eclipse, the rear door on a Nissan Cube, the driver's head fin on a Jaguar D-Type.
Not for Enrico and his associates. Here was Nardi's ultimate project, the Nardi-Danese 750 Bisiluro. What's in a name, asked another famous Italian, and while this car has had a few, its formal name was Damolnar, combining the last names of chief engineers Mario Dalmonte, Carlo Mollino and Enrico Nardi. And in Italian, "bisiluro" means, rather appropriately, "twin torpedo."
The 1982 SuperBikers Race was a made-for-TV special event thought up by the team at ABC’s Wide World of Sports. In short, the race was a work of genius. Over the course of a single lap the riders would encounter road racing conditions on tarmac, flat track-style conditions, then motocross conditions before passing the start/finish line and doing it all over again.
As a race it probably has the most in common with modern supermoto racing, or perhaps rallycross if the number of wheels don’t count. Exactly why this form of racing isn’t more common nowadays is lost on me, it’s fascinating to watch, requires a remarkable about of skill, and there’s no small amount of strategy left up to the riders who have to choose what kind of motorcycle they think will work best overall – and what kind of tires to use.
This race features a breathtaking performance by Danny “Magoo” Chandler, once of the most talented riders of his generation who seemed able to throw a leg over almost any kind of motorcycle and lay down a dominant performance.
The Yamaha XSR700 is about as close to a modern descendant of the original Yamaha XS650 as we’re ever likely to see, and much like its original forebear, the XSR 650 makes light work of urban commuting, highway riding, and the occasional cross-country excursion.
THE YAMAHA XSR700
The Yamaha XSR700 shares more than just a brandname with the XS650 – both motorbikes are parallel twins with overheads cams (albeit just one on the old bike) developed by Yamaha to target riders spanning from absolute beginners to hardened saddle warriors.
While the XS650 engine is one of my own personal favorite parallel twins of all time, the far more modern XSR700 benefits from over four decades of engineering advancements. With its relatively low price point of $8,499 in the USA, its semi-retro styling, and its broad versatility, the XSR700 has become a common sight on the road – and deservedly so.
In this article we'll focus on exotic Soviet military snow vehicles, and some civilian and scientific applications of these machines.
"Kharkovchanka" helped Soviet expeditions to reach the South Pole multiple times, and according to some sources, still remains in use at Russian polar stations. They praise the vehicle as the best ice/snow transportation ever made.
This page details Russian South Pole Traverse, using five tractors and ten towed sledges:
It's a Cold, Cold, Cold War
Any war on Russian territory always comes down to who has the best ability to cope with extreme winter conditions and the absence of any kind of roads. Add to it the huge distances to cover and no infrastructure to help you out if anything breaks down. Well, with these "aero-sled" prototypes (and a bottle of vodka) you can get anywhere, even in seemingly infinite Siberia.
The first aero-sled divisions were supplied to Russian Army in 1941 and battled against Nazis in the winter of 1942. The Germans were amazed to see such winter mobility, being hopelessly mired in snow & mud covered Russian countryside themselves. RF-8 model was especially successful, being the result of many 1932-1941 prototypes, designed by engineer M. Veselovski.
One nice feature of these models was the use of a normal automotive engine, not the custom airplane one. It was easy to repair and had a propeller, made from steel, not wood - increasing its ability to break through dense snow-covered forest.
