Five bikes...
[CUSTOM BIKES ]
Star of a recent Bonhams auction was this world record-breaking 4200cc, 48-cylinder two-stroke which sold for £92,000
£92,000 may seem a lot for a bike you can’t safely ride without possessing the arms of an orangutan, but as its creator Simon Whitelock once said: ‘It’s not made for speed or power – it’s made to get into The Guinness Book of Records.’ Which it duly did, as the land vehicle with the most cylinders. And yes, it is road legal.
The bike, which Bonhams auctioned in April, was finished in 2003 but the seeds for its creation were sown in 1985 when Simon started going to the Kawasaki Triple Rally. ‘Every now and again someone would turn up on a hybrid Kawasaki triple that I liked the look of,’ he said in 2018. ‘So, in 1987 I built a four-cylinder triple. Then I built a triple triple [with three banks of three cylinders arranged radially, the rear bank under the seat], then I built an inline seven triple [across the frame]. In a way, this bike was the end to all of that.’
All the cylinders are from KH250s, Kawasaki’s inline triple made from 1971 to 1980. Simon chose it because it was Kawasaki’s cheapest triple and there were loads of them, so parts were plentiful.
Simon’s first job was making six separate inline eight-cylinder engines. These were created by joining two triples together, chopping one cylinder off another triple and adding the remaining pair. By Simon’s standards this was a relatively easy job because he had done similar things so many times. By normal standards each eight-cylinder bank is a miracle, requiring a handmade super-long new crank and a single carb.
‘Once I’d made the six engines, I had to bolt them up [between two pieces of plywood] in such a way to allow the frame maker to do his bit. I derived the [crank] centres of each engine from the timber mock-up and gave the specifications to the engineers who made the primary gearbox that links all the engines together and provides an output shaft for the gearbox to bolt on to.’
Essentially, each engine has a gear wheel on the end of the crank, which then connects to the other five gear wheels via idlers. The whole system lies flat, so doesn’t take up too much room when mounted vertically on the back of the six engines.
REAR END
The hub was machined specially and laced to aHagon rim with the most heavy-duty spokes available.
DONKEY E
