Advertising Last completed movie pages Kawasaki H1 Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
|---|---|
|
◊ 2015-06-25 09:56 |
This would APPEAR to be a Kawasaki H1 aka "Mach III" the 500cc two-stroke triple, the "Green Meanie" of legend - unless of course it's the 750cc version the H2 aka Mach-IV - these were famous racing bikes of the early 70s, well the H1R was the official racing version, but many street-bikes made it onto the track as well. It's got such fantastic power-to-weight for the era, and was amenable to tuning and hot-rodding with say - expansion-chamber exhausts for example, that it could squeeze out a LOT more power than in regular street-bike form. As such it was popular for projects such as THIS one, which is a RACING side-car, where the passenger is known as a "Side-Car MONKEY", due to the way they'd clamour about throwing their weight this way or that so as to keep the "outfit" balanced properly through the corners - in the straights when the outfit/hack/side-hack was up to speed, the Monkey would lie flat on the deck with his face behind that tiny little bubble fairing which you can see here on the left. This is viewing the "hack" from straight-on, and this racer is unusual for not having much more of a fairing on the main motorcycle portion itself. It's a bit higher with slightly larger wheels than were commonly used on such racers at the time - well when this film came out in the late '70s they were using automotive racing wheels etc, but bikes/hacks like THIS one were more popular in the '60s, early '60s at that. It's an early '70s (1968/1969 introduction?) model of bike, however the build of this racer is decidedly RETRO, where a proper top-shelf 500cc-750cc side-hack racer of the '70s would at the very least be sporting 3.00x16" rim up front .... YEAH, actually squinting at the riders and the proportions of the engine etc, I'd say that's likely a 3.00x16" or even far more likely actually a WM3/2.15" x 16" front rim, with a proper '50s-'60s period-correct square-shouldered side-car tire up front (as opposed to a motorcycle tire which is round in cross-section, this would be flat on the outer circumference much like an automotive tire - which they're derived from I guess, old fashioned auto tires from smaller compact cars of the '40s & '50s especially) - It would appear to be a leading-link or girder fork on the front end, and not actually a fairing per-se on the bike but rather an un-painted number-plate. And nice low Clip-On handlebars. A really trick fly-weight three-wheeler with a VERY powerful engine. Probably most capable of giving the race CARS in this movie a run for their money!!! My GAWD especially if it's a 750cc version with a race-tuned expansion chamber exhaust! That's the type of thing that would literally melt it's tires.... |
Add a comment Advertising Advertising
![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
