Warbird 191 Cubic Inch Continental Radial V-Twin Custom

Ian Douglas recently completed “Warbird”, his latest build, which was born out of a combined love of vintage aircraft engines and similar period motorcycles.  The engine is a scratch designed/built power-plant that utilizes WWII radial aircraft cylinders and a one-off hand built crank case.

This isn’t one of those little Rotec radials used by Jesse James or JRL Cycles, these pieces are from a full size aero engine from the 1930s. The 2 cylinders, with a bore of 5.125″ and stroke of 4.625″ yield 191 cubic inches (3130cc) and mate to a crankcase designed by Ian himself. He designed the patterns, a local foundry made the casting.

Everything was built by Ian in his garden shed. He designed and built the boardtrack style hardtail frame with sufficient size to hold the engine while keeping it proportioned so someone can actually ride it. The artwork was done by a very talented local girl named Jennie Persak. She hand painted it with a brush no less! not an easy prospect when painting over a textured surface.

The colour was applied by an experienced aviation painter named George Kanavaros. He also painted a custom Indian motorcycle that I built that was a show winner.

Great looking bike with a beautiful looking engine.

This entry was posted on 21/11/2008 at 04:56 pm and is filed under Customs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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