One of the craziest motorcycles I’ve ever featured on Bike-urious was the creation of Ian Drysdale – it was called the 2x2x2 because it was a “two wheel drive, two wheel steer, two wheeled bike.” Ian also created a Superbike but even in a more traditional situation he still went crazy – he built his own V8 engine!
I’m sure you have plenty of questions and thankfully Jason at OddBike worked up one of his wonderful profiles on this machine, it’s definitely worth a read.
“How high did the Drysdale V8 rev? 17000 rpm. “Race” limit was claimed to be a searing 19000 rpm. To put that into perspective the 2006 Yamaha YZF-R6 was claimed to hit 17500 rpm off the showroom floor, making it one of the highest revving production motors of all time – when in fact the actual limit was 16200, a little lie that got Yamaha into some serious hot water. The only production motors to come close to those sorts of rev limits are tiny 250cc four cylinders like the Honda CBR250RR.”
“What made the V8 impressive was its use of off-the-shelf parts. The crankshaft and crankcase are custom items, as is the steel trellis frame and bodywork (and of course those stunning 8 into 2 headers), but aside from that just about everything in and the around the motor is made from readily available components. Aside from the FZR heads, cams, valves and pistons, you have a Honda oil pump, a Kawasaki alternator, Yamaha clutch and transmission, and a mix of Yamaha and Kawasaki suspension and chassis components. This is where Ian’s practicality shines through. He wanted to build an exotic that could be fixed, anywhere in the world, with parts from your local Japanese bike dealer.”
This example is the first of the V8 Superbikes – Ian would go on to design a 1,000cc engine which he used in four more Superbikes as well as a single example of a naked variant called the Bruiser (which a wonderful Bike-urious reader happens to own). It has 6,350 km on the odometer and it was last run in March after getting a service though Ian says it’s needs new fuel injectors. This is a rare opportunity to snag a truly incredible machine – if you pick it up and need help shipping it from Australia to the US, let me know!
Find this Drysdale for sale in Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia for $22,600 and the reserve not yet met here on Donington Auctions. I’m very curious to see where the bidding ends up…
This bike-uriousity brought to you by Jay B!