Who else is into cars? What do you drive?

Pastorbottle

That thing looks an absolute hoot!

B BrokenSkunk

Thanks! Yes it's certainly that. When it goes its powered by a 2002 Yamaha R1 engine, 150hp & 11,500rpm. I know 150hp isn't much these days, but the car only weighs 300Kg. That's 100Kg more than the donor bike that the engine came from, so I changed the gearing to reduce the top speed and keep some of the acceleration. Theoretical top speed is 142mph. I've never been brave / daft enough to try.

The bike engine its powered by comes with a sequential 6 speed box, but no reverse. So I fitted a Quaife in line reverse gear box in the middle of the propshafts. It's activated by a lever in the footwell. That means the car has six forward gears and six reverse gears. Again in theory it will do 142mph backwards. And again, I've never been brave enough to try anything other than 1st gear whilst in reverse (1st gear is good for 60mph.)

JimInOz

Pffft, the Aussie Lightburn Zeta had that capability way back in the 1960s with four forward and four reverse gears.
To get reverse, you turned the ingition off and then started the motor (2 stroke) backwards.

Like you, I doubt that any sane person ever tried its full reverse capabilities.

JimInOz

I beg to differ.

If a Zeta was rolled off the ramp of a Herc at 15000 feet, it would achieve a terminal velocity of 175mph or 78 metres per second.

😉