Never in a million years will Ferrari build a motorcycle — and with Ducatis being so awesome who needs it to? — but it’s fun to think about what might roll out of Maranello if it ever decided to give two-wheelers a try.
Many have envisioned such a machine and a few have actually built one or two of them, the best being the Ferrari-sanctioned bike Kay Engineering built in honor of Enzo Ferrari. But few have been so wild as what Amir Glinik’s come up with. The Israeli industrial engineer started toying with the idea in 2005 and has been working on it ever since.
"Vintage and modern Ferrari projects influence my design," he says on his website. "It’s a mix of what I find to be the best Ferrari lines with the latest technology I could think of in terms of engine, gear and driving management."
Frankly, the body doesn’t quite work for us, and with that wheelbase the bike would handle more like an Escalade than an Enzo. But the engine. Oh, wow, the engine. It’s a work of art. And isn’t that what Italian machinery is all about?
Previous Ferrari-themed motorcycles have used conventional V-twin or four-cylinder motorcycle engines, although one guy shoehorned a V6 from the Dino and a V8 from the Ferrari 308 into a pair of custom-built bikes. Glinick’s concept, which is so far just files on a computer, uses one-third of the V12 from the Enzo supercar. "The idea of ’slicing’ a V4 out of one of Ferrari’s engines was something I saw at (a) very early stage of the project, and that’s what I did," Glinik says.
The bike features fly-by-wire throttle and controls modeled after those in an F16. Dual-caliper brakes clamp down on a single perimeter rotor like those found on Buell motorcycles. There’s a touch-screen control pad mounted where the fuel tank is on conventional motorcycles (speaking of, where is the tank on this bike?). It’s used for engine management and to control suspension settings, the GPS unit and other functions.
As for those huge slats at the front of the bike, Glinik calls it an "active intake system" that controls air flow to the engine, and they close completely to increase drag under hard braking. You’d no doubt do a lot of that with that sweet V4 screaming between your legs.
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