History
Designers have experimented with the feet forward riding position since the early days of motorcycling.
In 1909 P.G Tacchi designed a four cylinder machine with a 700cc 'L' head air cooled engine, an enclosed shaft drive and a bucket seat. The machine was known as a TAC-Wilkinson, and was manufactured by the Wilkinson Sword Company
Ten years later in America Carl A. Neracher designed the Ner-a-Car It had a feet-forward riding position, a pressed steel frame and hub centre steering but in other respects was somewhat similar to a conventional motorcycle.
Designed by Sir Alliot Verdon Roe in 1926, the Ro-Monocar used a 250cc Villiers two stroke engine, and featured a high degree of enclosure for the rider and a bucket seat. This seating position provided a high degree of comfort for the rider
The Fred Wood designed Whitwood monocar used OEC duplex steering, retractable outriggers, and tandem bucket seats, and was offered with engine sizes ranging from 250-996cc between 1933 and 1935.
In the 1950s NSU produced a feet forward fully enclosed monocoque construction "Flying Hammock" record breaker. The feet forward riding position allowed an exceptionally small frontal area. The consequent low wind resistance made it possible for H.P. "Happy" Mueller to achieve 150 mph (241 km/h) from a 150cc engine at the Utah Salt flats in 1956.
The first recognisably modern design was the 1975 Quasar, built by Malcolm Newell and Ken Leaman. The design was not a great commercial success - just 22 examples were sold up until 1982 - but it generated a great deal of interest, and started others thinking about the FF concept.
Since 1984 Swiss manufacturer "Peraves" has produced small series of feet forward cabin motorcycles; 95 Ecomobiles were built from 1984 to 2005 and the Monotracer went into production in 2007. Following the outstanding successes of the all-electric E-Tracer, X-Tracers and ZeroTracer the MonoTracer-E is due to go into production in 2012.
In 1989 the Royce Creasey designed Voyager achieved a pre-production run of five prototypes made by SCL Ltd in Powys South Wales
In 2002, Dan Gurney's All American Racers produced a limited run of 36 Alligator models.
In 2006, the first Acabion prototype was presented at the Geneva Motor Show, a feet first cabin motorcycle.
In 2008, the Buddfab Streamliner set the speed record for a 50cc engine at 145 mph (233 km/h) with 20+ hp, then in 2009 the 125cc speed record at 186 mph (299 km/h). The Honda RS125 engine used produces 44 ps.
In 2010, Dutchman Allert Jacobs, creator of the Quest velomobile, streamlined a Honda Innova underbone motorcycle to more than double the fuel economy from 1 liter per 48 km (113 mpg) to 1 per 101 (237mpg).
Read more about this topic: Feet Forwards Motorcycle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)