Don't say it. I know what you're thinking (that it looks like a bike has crashed into the back of a race car, right?), and I can assure you that Simon Mackenzie, boss of SportCycle, has already heard it. Just trust me, this trike is better than it looks.
So, why does it look quite like it does? Because, as the saying goes, there's many a true word spoken in jest: SportCycle is, basically, the back half of a motorbike inserted into the front half of a racing car. Everything aft of the driver is absent from the racecar. Everything forward of the head-stock has been removed from the donor motorbike. The front of latter is inserted into the rear of the former. Bolts and stiffeners are applied, and the result: a light-weight, revvy, powerful three-wheeler with a low-centre of gravity and single driven rear-wheel. The modern interpretation of a Morgan or a JAP three-wheeler. Game on.
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| Laid bare: the trike without its single-seater body |
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Tell you what, though, like some of those earlier three-wheelers, the SportCycle could do with some bodywork enveloping its rear. And a front-end restyle wouldn't go amiss, either, in particular, ditching that God-awful square light. But, to be fair, Mackenzie's aware that the trike needs some development - and it'll get it - it's just that the first three demonstrator trikes have been imported direct from the United States, where the SportCycle originated.
A low-volume, high-performance tricycle isn't really the sort of thing you'd associate with the US car park. But, then, Jim Musser, the man who conceived the project, isn't the sort of engineer you'd associate with normal American cars.
Any normal cars, come to think of it. The former head of GM motorsport, he was also heavily involved in the Chapparal racing team, working on its legendary ground-effect race car among others, so he's no stranger to unusual automobiles.
