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Confederates’ New Plan as Curtiss Motorcycle Co.

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Confederate Motorcycles is to become the Curtiss Motorcycle Company. We reported on this story back in August already, so loyal Asphalt & Rubber readers should know that the news comes with the twist that the new company will focus on motorcycles that have electric drivetrains, provided by Zero Motorcycles.

Not much beyond those details was available at the time, and admittedly we don’t have a plethora of new information about this boutique American brand at this point in time as well, but we’ll share with you what we do know.

First of all, Curtiss Motorcycle will ultimately have a bike for a wide range of pocketbooks, not just the uber-rich that were serviced by Confederate. Curtiss’ first bike will be called the Hercules, and it is scheduled to drop on May 5, 2018.

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Bikes

Italian Volt Lacama Electric Motorcycle Brings Some Style

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Italian Volt’s debut model, the Lacama, isn’t the most beautiful motorcycle that we have ever seen, but the Italian brand certainly has done a good job making a stylish machine for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Capable of hiding up to 15 kWh of batteries in its brick-like case, the Italian Volt Lacama does a good job of tackling one of the biggest design problems that motorcycle manufacturers face with electrics: styling the massive battery packs that these machines require.

Taking things a step further though, Italian Volt will offer the Lacama in several different form-factors, with owners able to choose from options that include café racer, scrambler, and roadster designs.

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Bikes

Wunderlich BMW R nineT Cafe Racer by Nicolas Petit

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If you ask us, the BMW R nineT is a pretty big deal for the business of motorcycling, as its modular design allows for the air-cooled standard to be modified extensively and easily. BMW Motorrad designed the R nineT that way so tuners and customers alike could put their own stamp on the machine that celebrates the German motorcycle maker’s 90th year of business.

Whether your taste is along the lines of the heavily modified BMW Concept Ninety, which Roland Sands had a hand in making, or something more stock from the BMW parts catalog, the BMW R nineT can abide. So, it probably shouldn’t surprise us to see that Nicolas Petit has inked another build for German parts maker Wunderlich.

Drawing both a fully-faired and a more bare-boned version of Wunderlich BMW R nineT cafe racer, Petit has once again made a lurid proposition. We think those who love the classic lines of BMW’s past will enjoy these concepts, and if anything Petit’s work shows the versatility in the R nineT’s modular design.

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Opinion/Editorial

Modular Design & Why the BMW R nineT is Such a Big Deal

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The first of the new BMW R nineT motorcycles rolled off its assembly line today, a fact that is only newsworthy because so many motorcycle publications are struggling for content in these coming winter doldrums.

It was only a month ago that we were overwhelmed with stories of new bikes debuting in Milan, and now we motorcycle journalists must scrounge around for anything lurid that is at least tangentially related to motorcycles. I hear there is a law student in Italy selling nude photos of herself so she can buy a new scooter. Juicy.

Who doesn’t like a good tit story, right? But instead I offer to you perhaps the biggest development in motorcycling this year — a story that no one else has thought to discuss, until now — and it is about the BMW R nineT itself, and what it represents not only for BMW Motorrad, but also for motorcycling as a whole.

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Bikes

BMW R nineT – 90 Years in the Making

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Officially official now, BMW Motorrad has taken the wraps off its new BMW R nineT cafe racer motorcycle. Helping the German brand celebrate 90 years of building motorcycles, the nineT is an air-cooled homage to BMW’s rich motorcycling past.

Based around the iconic 1,170cc air-cooled boxer engine that BMW has employed in a number of its best selling machines, the BMW R nineT is good for 108hp and 88 lbs•ft of torque.

With styling said to be based off the legandary BMW R32 from 1923, the nineT has more traditional cafe racer lines, mated to some of BMW’s best technology.

BMW hopes that the production model R nineT will be the basis for more custom builds though, citing the company’s collaboration with Roland Sands for the BMW Concept Ninety project as one such project to use the nineT’s roots for inspiration.

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Rumors

Rumor: Ducati Scrambler Cometh

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While I was lounging at the pool this holiday weekend, getting my bronze on, the A&R Bothan Spy network was hard at work dumpster diving, hacking emails, and subscribing to the NSA’s live PRISM feed.

The fruits of that labor was the alarming realization of how many kitten videos the motorcycle industry collectively watches in a single day, and the fact that Ducati is working on scrambler-style motorcycle.

The project itself dates way back when Pierre Terblanche was still toiling away in Bologna, dodging equal portions of labor strikes and carbonara, and at the time was based around the now defunct Ducati Sport Classic.

Shelved, and thought never to see the light of day, we can only imagine this whole Hipstacyclist™ movement has helped Ducati rethink its position regarding a scrambler.

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