Last month saw Allen Millyard’s outrageous Viper V10 sell at auction for £149,500. The wild one-off, which produces over 500bhp from a Dodge Viper V10 supercar engine, has been tested to 207mph and gained cult status as its creator clocked up over 9000 road legal miles.
But Allen’s is not the only multi-cylinder monster bike to have been created. A few other concepts built around the Viper V10 made it into metal, but if we knock off a few cylinders we are able to put together a real collection of V8 dreamers. Bikes their creators thought would make a difference in the world of motorcycling but which, in most cases became pipe dreams and a footnote in motorcycling history.
Rather than let these ambitious projects be forgotten about, we wanted to keep those dreams alive and remind ourselves of these ambitious superbikes, so here (in a rough chronological order) are eight (‘natch) V8 bikes which (almost) made it to reality….
Curtiss V8 – the original record breaker
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Curtiss_V-8_Motorcycle.jpg
Long before modern superbikes were chasing 200mph, Glenn Curtiss was doing it with a machine that looked like it had been assembled from equal parts motorcycle and aircraft.
That’s because Curtiss’ 1907 V8 motorcycle used a 269 cubic inch (4.4 litre) air-cooled engine, called the B-8, which he’d designed to be used in aircraft. It produced less than 40bhp and, with direct drive and minimal braking, it would likely have been a wild ride. But it was a record breaker when, on a Florida beach, Curtiss recorded a world record 136mph, a landmark which would stand for over 20 years.
Moto Guzzi V8 – the racing masterpiece
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moto_Guzzi_V8_Ottocilindri_noBG.jpg
The Moto Guzzi V8, or Otto Cilindri as it was known in its native Italian, remains one of the most technically astonishing racing motorcycles ever produced.
Built for Grand Prix racing in the 1950s, when technical rules were far less limited than today, its tiny 500cc V8 was designed to deliver extraordinary performance while keeping weight and frontal area to a minimum. Guzzi were real trailblazers in GP racing, with the aerodynamic ‘dustbin’ fairing equally innovative.
Britain’s Bill Lomas won the 1955 Ulster Grand Prix but it was ultimately a failure. It might have been fast, but it was complex and unreliable too. That didn’t tarnish its legacy though. It’s fondly remembered as one of the most ambitious racing projects of all time.
Morbidelli V8 – big ambitions, small sales
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morbidelli_V8_1997_Barber.jpg
Giancarlo Morbidelli was already a legendary figure in race engineering when he turned his attention to the road. His bikes had won numerous Grand Prix world titles in the 1970s, but these had largely been forgotten when the distinctive looking Morbidelli V8 prototype was unveiled in 1994.
More sports tourer than superbike, the styling was softened by the time it went into production with a massive price tag in 1997. The shaft-driven 847cc 90° V-twin was reportedly based on a shrunken Cosworth design but, despite the Formula One heritage, power was a mediocre 120bhp and only three more examples were built.
Today the brand is under Chinese ownership, its budget models being a far cry from this V8 – which found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most expensive production motorcycle.
Norton Nemesis – Britain’s superbike that never was
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norton_Nemesis_(4115351506).jpg
We’re not sure if the Norton Nemesis deserves a place in our list, we mean, was it even real?
Another ambitious plan to revive the once iconic brand, the Nemesis was planned to be the headline bike powered by Norton’s new modular engine design. While many models would use a more conventional 750cc four, the Nemesis used two banks of cylinders to create a 1500cc V8 with a theoretical top speed of over 200mph.
One non-running prototype was built and used as a display bike. The company went bust before any new models could make it into showrooms, but the Nemesis would finally run in 2025, over a quarter of a century after the project was canned. Allen Millyard was commissioned by the National Motorcycle Museum to get it up and running, and the project was documented on his YouTube channel.
Boss Hoss V8 – Is there anything more American?
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boss_Hoss_V8_motorcycle.jpg
There’s an old American saying that ‘there ain’t no substitute for cubes’ and it’s clear that Monte Warne of Boss Hoss Cycles got the memo.
His company has sold several thousand custom bikes powered by Chevrolet V8s, making it by far the biggest player in this niche market.
There’s no subtlety here. It’s a big bruiser of a cruiser. Need we say any more?
Drysdale V8 – the wonder from Down Under
The Drysdale V8 was a fascinating Australian attempt to create a high-performance motorcycle, taking a complete opposite approach to the Boss Hoss.
Conceived and built by engineer Ian Drysdale, the project followed the Moto Guzzi by demonstrating that a V8 engine could be packaged into a relatively compact motorcycle. The result was an exotic, engineering-led machine that became one of the more unusual chapters in the history of home-grown Australian performance motorcycles. Rather than shoehorning a massive car engine into a motorcycle, Drysdale’s compact 750cc engine was designed around a pair of Yamaha FZR400 cylinder blocks.
Ian built a handful of bikes to order, as a sideline to his day job as a consultant to mainstream manufacturers. You can read more about his V8 here.
PGM V8 – another Aussie beaut!
There have been a few V8 concepts in recent years, but we stay in Australia for this little ripper.
The PGM V8 takes a similar approach to Ian Drysdale’s V8, being powered by a homebrewed motor born out of a couple of Yamaha R1 blocks. The resultant two-litre V8 is quoted as producing over 330bhp and is the work of former race engineer Paul Maloney, who spent the best part of a decade developing the machine after returning home to Melbourne after a career in Europe.
Maloney built the bike bearing his initials to order, although we’re not sure how many were sold in the end. We’ve certainly never seen one at our local bike meet!
Eisenberg EV8 – Zef’s legacy
Image source: Photo is manufacturer supplied.
The Eisenberg V8 was created by land-speed-record holder Zef Eisenberg and his engineering team, using a purpose-built engine rather than simply dropping a large car engine into a motorcycle frame.
Like many of the other machines we’ve mentioned, the Eisenberg V8 utilises the architecture of an existing inline four motorcycle engine. In this case, a couple of Suzuki Hayabusa blocks are used to create a three-litre V8 capable of producing nearly 500bhp.
The bike was due to enter production in 2021 but sadly Zef was killed in a car crash in 2020, which understandably appears to have put development of the bike bearing his name on hold.
