With four wheels, it’s tough to acknowledge the Tomahawk as a motorcycle. But then, it is what it is. It is a motorcycle.
How on earth do we accept a vehicle as a motorcycle when it has received four wheels and a V8 engine that literally is meant to be employed in a car? Well, the Dodge Tomahawk has been labelled as a “motorcycle” by the industry experts.
Made its debut in 2003, the Dodge Tomahawk was a concept motorcycle unveiled at the North American International motor show. Equipped with an 8.3-litre V10 engine, the insane motorcycle could gain a speed of 96 kmph within 2.5 seconds and could develop a maximum potential of 502PS. The motorcycle also established a record top speed of 643.7 kmph, which is why it could not be a road-legal motorcycle. Further, its price sticker was awfully high at $555,000 (4,06,42,650 INR) which made it less accessible. To date, there are only nine models produced and auctioned in the world.
Engine
The motorcycle was equipped with a liquid-cooled, 90-degree V-type 10-cylinder motor that constituted of 356-T6 aluminium alloy cylinder heads along with cast-iron liners. A sequential fuel injection system controlled the fuel with separate runners and twin-aluminium radiators mounted on the top of the manifold intakes for cooling.
Suspension setup
Two tyres on the front and two on the rear held the motorcycle’s strength along with hub-centred steering system that empowered the motorcycle to counter-steer. The suspension duty on the front was taken care by a centrally adjustable coil-over damper with a pull rod and mono linkage that was also rocker actuated. On the tail, the suspension duty was controlled by hand-made box style inbound swing arms that were created of steel along with a single fully adjustable Koni coil-over damper.
Brakes
20-inch rotors handled the braking duties on each of the four wheels. On the front, each tyre had dual four-piston calliper whereas the back wheels comprised a lone four-piston aluminium calliper. All the mentioned callipers were blue anodized.
Electronics
The motorcycle was ahead of its age with 12 LEDs encased in round-fashioned dials on the front, whereas the end had eight sets of LEDs powered by a 600 CAA battery.
The concept was insane but did not survive in the industry for its road legality issue and price-tag. Bud Bennett, the man behind this thought and the president of RM Motorsports said that Chrysler wanted him to find 20 buyers. However, merely nine were met and Chrysler decided not to invest capital into the production of this monster.
