We had given up Horex for dead several years ago, with the German brand struggling to get its VR6 platform to market and in the hands of customers.
But, don’t discount this motorcycle company just yet, as the Horex VR6 Raw debuted this week in Cologne, for the INTERMOT trade show.
As such, the attractive roadster is an exercise in black-on-black, with virtually every component on the six-cylinder machine murdered out for a sinister effect.
We were excited when it was announced that Horex, a revisited German brand, was getting a second chance at life and again making motorcycles. The team announced a new street-standard with a VR6 engine — even more interesting was that one of the models was to be supercharged and deliever 200hp.
As time has worn on though, we have become less interested. While the finished Horex VR6 is a beautiful bike, you would be hard-pressed to understand its €24,500 price tag. Disappointingly too, the supercharger model never materialized.
There doesn’t seem to be much of a follow-up for the German brand either, and after debuting the “Classic” model in August of last year, today we get out third flavor of the Horex VR6: the oddly named Horex VR6 Café Racer 33 Limited.
Just the other day we were wondering what was going on with Horex, as we haven’t heard from the German brand in nearly nine months. Finally shipping its first bike, the Horex VR6 Roadster, Horex has now announced a second model that is geared more towards mass consumption, the Horex VR6 Classic.
A re-styled, and apparently de-tuned version of the Roadster model, from what we can gather from Horex’s press release, the big changes for the Classic are its new aesthetic and reworked motor, which produces 124hp compared to the roadster’s 161hp peak figure.
All things considered, it hasn’t taken Horex that long to come to market with its first machine, the Horex VR6 Roadster. Not the supercharged street-standard that we first saw (there’s been no update when that variant will be available), but still a plucky 161hp motorcycle that should attract the discerning buyer.
Featuring a 1,218cc, 15°, VR6 motor, the Horex VR6 Roadster has had a number of delays in its production (here & here), not to mention the set-back with the supercharged model, but bringing a new model to market in less than three years is still quite a feat in this industry, so our hats are off to zie Germans.
After seeing the production schedule of the Horex VR6 pushed back several times now (let’s not even mention the DOA-status of the supercharged version of the bike), it looks like the revival of the German brand is nearly ready for primetime, as Horex has released a video of the VR6 scooting about (sans its triple-pipe exhaust). The aptly named Horex VR6 features a 15° VR-shaped six-cylinder motor, which with its 1,218cc displacement produces a stout 161 bhp.
Built with classic roadster styling, Horex has been tight-lipped on the bike’s pricing, though we expect that it will be well north of $20,000 when it reaches American shores. While we’ve already heard the supercharged Horex testing on the company’s engine dyno, this is the first we’re heard from the naturally aspirated model. Check it out after the jump, and let us know if you think it was worth the wait.
In the past when a new motorcycle entry has come to market, we are bombarded with a bevy of media releases about the company’s two-wheeled offering. Usually this also means that Twitter gets lit up like a Roman candle, and Facebook turns into a digital burlesque show where each piece of the bike is slowly revealed and teased in front of us. Such is not the case with Horex however, as the revived German motorcycle brand is being very…well, German about its VR6 roadster.
Set to being production on the non-supercharged Horex VR6 in the coming weeks, the jewel of the German company, its six-cylinder narrow-angled VR motor, will be built in Augsburg, Germany. Initially making only a few bikes a day, Horex’s assembly line will feature the “one man, one bike” approach, where a single-worker will work on the same motorcycle throughout the company’s four-stage build process (read: more Ferdinand Porsche, less Henry Ford). Each bike built by Horex is made to order, though we are not sure how any pre-orders have been made with the company, let alone what the price tag could look like.
Zie Germans are still hard at work this winter back in zie mother country, as the final production version of the Horex VR6 is coming together. Today, the German company has announced the official performance figures of its new street bike, and the base 1,218cc six-cylinder VR motor comes with 161hp on tap and 100 lbs•ft of peak torque.
Making its peak power at 9,000 rpm, the Horex VR6 also makes most of its torque extremely low in the rev range. With 66 lbs•ft of torque at 2,000 rpm, the German roadster reaches 74 lbs•ft of torque at 3,500rpm, which fits well with the company’s hope of making the VR6 easy to ride on city streets.
Perhaps more interesting that the performance figures is the announced constant solid-graphite chain lubrication system. As the name implies, the Horex VR6 will constantly lube its chain, but instead of using oil or wax, as is traditionally used, the German motorcycle company has partnered with specialists at the Schunk Group, who have created a system that constantly coats the chain drive with a thin layer of graphite.
Less messy, and not prone to being flicked off the chain by centrifugal forces, the dry chain lubrication system is an industry first brought to market by Horex, and sounds intriguing on paper. With claims that it increases maintenance intervals over standard chain lubrication systems, this is a feature owners will be particularly interested in seeing reviews of as the VR6 hits dealer floors.
German upstart Horex has announced that production of the Horex VR6 will be delayed from its planned start later this year, and instead will start production in Spring 2012. Citing part supply issues, particularly with the bike’s supercharger unit, Horex will first make available its 160hp normally-aspirated version, while the 197hp supercharged version will start production in late 2012.
The supply chain issue stems from the rebounding of the European OEM parts suppliers industry, who have lately been inundated with parts requests. Getting reportedly shuffled to the back of the queue, Horex does not have parts in the quantities it needs to make a proper production run, and thus has pushed production back further.
Development of the Horex VR6 street bike continues at the German company, with this latest teaser video hitting YouTube (we suspect it will put a sizable dent in the Royal Wedding viewership, at least it did for us). Using a time-lapse video technique, we see the Horex engineers assembling one of their Horex VR6 prototype motorcycles in just 46 seconds (less if you don’t want to count the end branding).
As the name implies, Horex is using a 1218cc VR6 motor, which offsets and staggers the six cylinders with a 15º “V” arrangement that allows for a more compact design across the bike’s width. Supercharged, the Horex VR6 will make nearly 200hp, while weighing 526 lbs, which should excite many road-going two-wheel fans. Check the video out after the jump.
While here in The United States of America the buzz is all about the new Motus MST sport-tourer and the Erik Buell Racing 1190RS sportbike, in Germany the talk of the town is the new Horex VR6 street bike, which began its road testing today. Horex released a photo of the supercharged 200+hp 1,200cc machine testing on a closed circuit, with Hennes Fischer, the man in charge of the VR6’s development, stating that “in this phase of the test series we mainly wanted to determine whether the current suspension configuration, basic geometry and engine tuning are correctly matched. It’s a big step from computer calculations and engine tuning on the dynamometer to a perfectly functioning bike.”
Out of stealth mode today in Munich, Horex Motorcycles is back after getting the axe from Daimler-Benz back in 1960. To help usher the company back into the motorcycle industry, Horex has developed a V6 1200cc supercharged concept bike that uses a VR6 cylinder configuration. A solid looking street-standard, the Horex VR6 concept is expected to begin production late in 2011, and make somewhere between 175hp-200hp, and over 110lbs•ft of torque.