After revealing its Warhawk, which picks up from designs originated by Confederate Motorcycles (a brand identity abandoned for obvious reasons), Curtiss Motorcycles unveiled at the recent Quail Motorcycle Gathering in Carmel a monstrously powerful concept called the Zeus. Powered by twin electric motors, the Zeus claims to make in the neighborhood of 170 hp and 290 foot/pounds of torque!
Attempting to “redesign the American motorcycle”, Curtiss felt free to design the Zeus from scratch with no preconceptions of what a motorcycle should look like. The machined billet chassis incorporates unusual suspension along with the massively powerful electric motors.
Curtiss says that its founder, Glenn Curtiss, invented the v-twin motorcycle in 1903. The Zeus concept is expected to reach production in 2019 (as a 2020 model), and is purportedly one of several Curtiss models currently under development.
At the Carmel event, the Zeus was awarded the “Most Innovative Motorcycle” prize from a panel of judges that included industry icon Craig Vetter. Let us know what you think of the Zeus.
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Stupid is as stupid as those with too much money, who would be the only people buying this ugly piece of crap. Craig must be getting senile.
This is a joke, right? I mean, it’s ugly, expensive, ugly, poorly designed, and ugly. There are some electric bikes on the market I’d be happy to try out, despite concerns over range. I’m not so desperate for attention that I’d want to ride this thing.
Throw a seat on it and add a cigarette lighter and I’d ride the thing.
Reminds me of the Dodge Tomahawk
I was fortunate to test a ZERO Police edition Electric motorcycle it was cool, if price was lower it would be great, cant wait to see how reliability is in a few years. THIS IS NOT.. seems ridiculous.
You know how really beautiful designs look like they are going a hundred miles per hour even while parked……? Yeah, this doesn’t.
Have any of you guys ever seen a Rokon? Well this is a Rokon dressed up for the inter-galactic prom dance.
I do like the way they posed the photo of it in the weeds. Which is probably where it belongs. Cause the designers are certainly out in the weeds when it comes to sculpting a motorcycle. Serious, what are they smoking at Curtiss….?
Another dysfunctional circle-jerk motorcycle creation from legends in their own minds.
I am quite sure there is a reason beyond reproach as to why a fundamentally flawed chain angle & rear suspension pivot point is being used as well as for the small front brake rotors. But it’s more interesting than a toaster oven as far as appliances go.
In regards to that chain & rear suspension pivot, it appears that the drive motor(s) are concentric with them. To lower the pivot would be lowering the motors(s), and the only way to do that is to move part of the battery pack to a location above the motors (rather than below, as currently). That, I’m sure, would raise the CoG through the roof – batteries aren’t light.
What batteries? I bet the bike is a plastic mock-up, even the motor is a dressed up paint can.
I agree that the swingarm pivot and drive sprockets appear to be concentric, so no chain slack issues.
HOWEVER, with that swingarm angle, I’m willing to bet that the rear suspension is locked solidly at full extension while under power.
“the small front brake rotors”
It appears to have the four disc brake system with two discs on each side of the wheel, and a brake pad between them as well as on the outsides. This gives much more braking power than you would get from only two small discs.
nice sewing machine…
At least a sewing machine has a purpose. This thing is just a design exercise that will probably never make it to production (and that’s a good thing!)
LMAO!!! Classic!
OMG, could they have made it any uglier?
Seriously, that is absolutely horrible. No style, no grace, no flair, just ugly.
Hope the company goes belly up fast, no one deserves to have to look at that.
It’s a little Raymond Loewy but with confused lines and shapes. Loewy actually created harmonized designs. The swing arm angle doesn’t make any sense from a visual design perspective. Neither does the random collection of round and rectangular shapes. The seat is streamlined but the front suspension is not. The fins on various parts are going different directions. And why is the box in the middle so big? Do the batteries really need to be that large? I find it confused and it looks like another example of a CNC machine with nothing better to do.
I’ll agree with this. The front suspension and the forward chassis / battery system have a real “22nd Century BMW Boxer” feel to them, but then it all goes ‘Boom!’ with no balancing construct behind it (and ‘behind’ is a double-entente, as that “seat” won’t have a “behind” on there for long!!).
Almost guys, almost. Your industrial design is awesome but you need a automotive / vehicle designer-stylist in your group to finish off the concepts.
‘damn, that thing makes the flying brick BMW’s look good. Design studies are one thing, making a bike that people will actually by is another. For their sake, I hope that’s the former.
enough already
Zeus claims to make in the neighborhood of 170 hp and 290 foot/pounds of torque! Look for rider ejections from the 6 o’clock position. Not much to hold onto at those power levels. With those smooth sides and seat it’s all on your hands to stay in place, talk about an arm stretcher.
It doesn’t look like a production bike, more of a design study. It also, IMO, looks a little too chunky in the engine bay area and too light at the handle bars. It has incredible power, more than can be used on the street, and the use of a billet frame is impressive.
So, is this going to be a trials bike? Because I don’t see a seat anywhere.
Seriously though, I understand the desire to customize. I understand the desire to experiment and prototype. I understand concept bikes. Really, I do. What I DON’T understand is why in each of these cases, the designers forget, ignore or sometimes even show genuine contempt for the idea that motorcycles are meant to be ridden by actual humans.
OUCH!
Mind Your Privies! (one of my British friends)
FWO! (for women only)
A little shy on torque if you ask me.
Looks like a locomotive
With the torque of a locomotive, why not go with the looks as well?
WHOA! Who are these folks and how pretentious can you get. I went to the site and saw the Warhawk powered by “petrol” and then the Zeus also titled the hot rod god and then there is the woody guthrie music and the grainy simple folk of the soil talking about the future being green and the dedication to Glen Curtiss who had nothing to do with this collage of futuristic retrocrap. Where are the laser headlights to cut thru the darkness, a halo generator to create a bubble of clean air around the rider, a holographic globe on the dash to tell you where in the world you are, a resonator that produces sympathetic vibrations thru the bike at your contact points to both stimulate and relax the meridians in your body and increase and balance your chi and a broadcast system that plays your favorite tunes with your voice doing the lead vocals and voice command blue tooth so you can order dinner, do business and assure police that you are not the dope they are looking for…
If it had MY voice on the lead vocals, I definitely wouldn’t buy it. That would be awful.
Looks comfy.
This bike is just a prototype, a concept…hopefully. Weight will be an issue. Those batteries are heavy. Design is interesting. It looks nice just standing there, but in the final version include a seat so someone can ride it. Will be priced for the deep of pocket.
Nice???
It looks unrideable as is. That swing arm won’t work, regardless of how uncomfortable the seat is.
And why won’t the swingarm work?
Did you not notice the angle of the swing arm? At 30 degrees or so, half of the power goes to lifting the rear end and the other half goes to pushing it forward. Any application of throttle will try to shorten the wheelbase, lifting the rear and tucking the wheel under the bike. This is basic motorcycle design. There is a little force counteracting this with the angle of the top run of the chain but this design plain just won’t work.
Isn’t that assuming the swingarm will rotate to the underside of the bike without resistance? Perhaps that rotation could be compensated for at the pivot point of the swingarm. I am clearly not a motorcycle designer, although I design other stuff.
I don’t know at which point the swingarm angle becomes too extreme to be workable, but the chain run angle seems mild enough and would maybe help to combat extending the suspension too much under acceleration?
I find it hard to believe they would ignore something so elementary as making a workable swingarm. But then it is a concept, so who knows.
ROKON Baby!!..Rock ON!!!..
Surely the motor/generators should be part of the wheels, direct drive is surely the essence of future motivation. Do we still have to have that remnant of the ‘Industrial Revolution’, the chain, adorning the motorcycle of the future?
Grumps
Unsprung weight!
Just another of the challenges for technology – G
I must say people, a lot of your comments are simply gold. Descriptions such as “ toaster”, ”sunbeam”, ”Lego”, ”hideous oozing pretentious dystopian poop prop nightmare”, with a cool headlight. All pretty accurate and good for a snicker! I am amused! I must say though, picture it with a saddle seat and a couple tractor tires, it kinda looks like a Rokon.
If Schwarzenegger had ridden this in Terminator 2 it would have been cool and they would have sold tons of them.
I think 99% of you are sort of missing the point. I saw it at the Carmel show last weekend and as a concept piece it was very impressive. You have to get peoples’ attention, and it did that. From an industrial design and craftsmanship point of view it was stunning, and certainly not intended to be out on the road as a daily driver (and there were daily drivers there that I wouldn’t ride very far). At the show the history of motorcycling was on full display, and thankfully there seems to be plenty of room for every imaginable approach to these machines.
Curtiss is rolling in his grave.
This guy peaked with the first Wraith. He’s been going down hill ever since. With this bike, he entered a time warp that fast forwarded him to a future time when he was much much further down the hill.
Looks like a toaster with wheels.. A huge monstrosity of a toaster that only toasts two slices of bread at a time.
Guess we’ll all be eating crow if the thing has a 500 mile range, but I doubt that’s the case.
I like the headlight. Not the bracket holding it in place, or the rest of the bike, but the headlight is just fine.
Obviously “innovative” doesn’t mean good looking or practical.
It’s very hard to imagine an ugliest ¿bike? than this, not to mention the ergonomics…
Terribly ugly and poor handling. I doubt you can use much throttle without the swing arm tucking the rear wheel under the bike and lifting the rider into the air. Maybe they should look at some basic engineering principles first.
That said, it looks like they styled it after an R32, loosely. This is a defamation of Glenn Curtiss’ name.
How much do you want to bet there is no motor or batteries in this bike, other than the tiny 12v unit powering the lights.
I see that Craig Vetter was on the panel that voted it “most innovative motorcycle.” Craig was and is a first rate designer, but I don’t think his vote was based on this dubious style. He is a big advocate of reducing fossil fuel consumption, so I imagine he supported this motorcycle based on its electric power. I can’t imagine any other reason to vote for it.
What is it for?
It’s for Jay Leno’s collection of weird one-offs parked in the back of his museum.
I didn’t realize Boston Dynamics were building motorcycles now?
What a gross example of form over function. Practically nothing on that machine looks designed with the rider in mind, while nearly everything seems built for aesthetics. Does the designer even ride?
It looks like it would be used for drag racing. But at the end of the quarter mile you will have to recharge it. Electric vehicles have no range. That is why Americans don’t buy them. Put a butt stop on the seat so you won’t slide off the backside when the light turns green.
What a way to waste investment and product development capital. Better solution: convert the money into greenbacks and just drive down the freeway and throw it out the window.
Uhhhh…. No. Just… no.
I’d buy one.
Just curious – why?
Hideous dystopian nightmare!! Can a bike get any uglier? Hard to imagine.This is what trying to appeal to liberal elites gets you.
“This is what trying to appeal to liberal elites gets you.” Seriously? Best to just long for the good old days, right?
yep.
What do I think of this? Not much.
It is unrideable.
12 Monkeys called – they want their prop back…
WHAT exactly was so special and innovative about this monstrosity?
LOL! Excellent!
Perhaps more like they want back the poop they flung at the farteest responsible for this pile. Did Yoko Ono have anything to do with this turdling?
Another “custom” motorcycle that unless it’s moving will be covered in flies within minutes.
Think about it…
“Most Innovative Motorcycle.” Sort of like Himmler getting an award for most innovative way to murder.
Good candidate for the first rider-less, passenger-less, robot motorcycle. Rather than having to be seen on this monstrosity, the owner simply simply sends a text order to it. Example:” Hey Zeus, rundown to the quick-stop and get me a six pack.”
The angle of the swingarm would probably give it weird handling. Accelerate hard and it would jack-up the rear. Use the back brake and the rear of the bike would squat. This may be desirable in small amounts, but this looks like it has too much angle.
This thing oozes…pretentiousness. You could walk pirates off that seat. 😄
Gee that looks like a comfy long distance ride and no way would your pants leg ever get caught in that drive chain. S/
+1
This is a prank, right?
On my computer right now is an ad in the sidebar; “What to do after a car wreck…”. Why do engineering exercises completely ignore aesthetics? Wouldn’t you start your marketing campaign from the very first sight of the prototype? Why be polarizing? Put some mass appeal in there. I know they’re proud of themselves, but jeeesh….
Wouldn’t make much sense to try to create mass appeal for something the masses can’t afford, now would it? Probably best to try to create something off the wall if you want to appeal to a hundred or so well-off buyers. Which is what they did. I like it personally.
As usual, a thoughtful response that makes sense.
As stated in previous article- “What’s the point?”
If I made a motorcycle out of LEGOs, what would it look like.
Looks vaguely like a boxer. I thought they were into V-twins.
Enclose the chain. Better yet use belt or gear drive. Lose a few hundred pounds. Create a proper seat. Add rear pegs & passenger seating. Start the dang motor with kick start as well as push button. Storage for gear & helmet? A long way to go yet before real production.
MY NUTS!!
Star Wars – Version XXII
Rokon, I’m your Father
If I squint my eyes enough I can see the word “Sunbeam” on the motor case.
Yeah, Sunbeam circa 1956 !
Hilarious !
I kinda hate to say it but it’s too much fun ripping this thing !
Maybe Matt Chambers has a clever angle to exploit a niche in the market but it reminds me of the post-modern artist.
The viewer is pressured to convince themselves they’re beholding “high art” that requires a sophisticated artistic sensitivity to appreciate. Never mind your feelings of horror, disgust and confusion , it’s art !
Sorry Matt, ya missed.
And I thought my stock seat was uncomfortable…. If there is a robot riding it, I suppose that works
What connection does Matthew Chambers have to Glenn Curtiss, the “founder” of this company? Is Chambers a descendant? Glenn Curtiss died in 1930, and Confederate Motors wasn’t founded until 1991. Maybe “inspiration” would be a more apt term than “founder.”
Barf
Like others, I’m highly skeptical about cost and practicality. It must also weigh more than any bike ought to. Jay Leno might not be concerned about that chain drive spinning just inches from his butt, but I would be.
I freely admit that opinions about beauty or lack of are subjective and personal. Regardless, in the third picture down, the man second from the right appears to be pulling down his zipper. I’d be in line behind him. I’d even drink an extra beer to assure a complete dousing. A bike doesn’t have to be ugly to be electric, nor does a bike have to be electric to be ugly. This one just happens to cover both bases very well, to my eyes.
Super ugly and most likely not affordable (except for Jay Leno), bring in the Harley Livewire….
hope it doesn’t morph to the Harley haywire
“With no preconceptions of what a motorcycle should look like”
One sentence that says it all.
I think that at least a few preconceptions would have been a good thing.
About as pretty as a farm implement.
farm implements are designed/styled to be practical/useful/efficient. to do what their styling says, and, after looking at ’em, not make you ask what they do. I like farm implements…
Right on, dt. Go back to the “primitive” roots of farming, and you’ll see real beauty in the progression of the equipment that increased man’s ability to work the ground, plant seeds, and harvest crops. The guys that invented that stuff (McCormick, Deere, Case, and those that came before them), were flipping geniuses – simplicity, functionality, efficiency.
What’s the range? I agree, the looks are polarizing and certainly not for me. I doubt they would resonate with a younger generation either. And is 290 ft/lbs even practical? How much does this thing weigh?
I just don’t see it being successful. I’m sure Jay Leno will stuff one into his garage, but the common people’s bike? Not so much…
This is similar, if not less, power than many super bikes today. Practicality has nothing to do with it. Thigh I’d much rather have a Super Duke or BMW 1000 over this ugly, uncomfortable, bad handling short range bike any day.
What do I think about it? Honestly, I hate everything about it. Motorcycles are about “feel” and emotion, right? In that case…it makes me “feel” like kicking it over. I hope they are not pinning their financial future on this art deco clothing iron.
who wants to sit on a 2×6, or whatever size that plank is? ugh.
zero bikes lead the pack imho.
Very cool concept bike — the production model MUST have quick swap batteries. Not having no-tool exchangeable batteries is a total deal breaker no matter how cool the bike is. That would be like having a 1/4 inch filler neck on your gas bike.