BMW R00: A conversion kit to turn your airhead electric
Switching classic cars to electric power is becoming almost commonplace. There are companies and kits that can electrify everything from old Land Rovers to Rolls-Royces. Ford is getting in on the game, offering the Mustang Mach E GT motor as a ?crate? engine. And if you have the cash to spare, Jaguar?s own restoration department will even drop an I-Pace motor into your vintage E-Type.
Motorcycles are a different proposition, though. There?s less space to hide an ugly battery, the tech is biased towards four-wheelers, and motorcyclists as a group are less accepting of electric power than the average car driver.
That makes Luuc Muis something of an outlier, because he?s just developed and released a kit that turns BMW airheads into electric motorcycles. You may already have heard of Luuc: he?s a Dutch product designer, the founder of LM Creations, and most famous for his Indian Scout Bobber called Hasty Flaming Buffalo. Taking an R-series frame as the base, Luuc has created a bolt-on electric drivetrain that replaces the existing engine?but keeps the gearbox and the rest of the driveline. And it looks rather amazing, too.
The prototype shown here uses a BMW R80 donor bike. But Luuc believes it?s possible to bolt the system to all R-series bikes built between 1969 and 1995?with just minor modifications to the top tube in some cases.
The most intriguing aspect of this conversion kit is the way Luuc has integrated the electric motor. He?s reverse-engineered and cast new ...
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