A road-legal motorcycle powered by a Rolls Royce helicopter turbine engine and the successor to the famed Y2K has smashed three world speed records and one British record.
Even with blinkers, horn, mirrors and road-legal tyres, the Madmax bike set the following records at the Straightliners Speed Record event in Elvington, UK, in May 2015:
- World’s fastest Turbine Motorcycle – 1 mile (one way): 233.7mph (376.1km/h)
- World’s fastest Streetfighter – 1 mile (one way): 231.6mph (372.7km/h)
- World’s fastest flying quarter mile for Turbine Motorcycle: 3.91 sec
- Britain’s fastest Naked Motorcycle (Official ACU two way average): 225.6mph (363.1km/h)
Madmax is a continuation of the Y2K project built by Marine Turbine Technologies (MTT) in 1988.
Y2K motorcycles were rare and highly sought after. American talk show host Jay Leno has one and there was one in the Australian Motorcycle Museum near Ipswich which is now closed.
When MTT dropped the Y2K to concentrate on mining equipment, Maxicorp founder Zef Eisenberg visited their HQ in Louisiana in 2005 to strike an agreement to take over the development of the next generation of turbine bike.
They shipped the last Y2K motorcycle to Maxicorp in UK to use as the basis for developing its successor.
The bike now produces 404kW (542hp) of power and more than 610Nm (450 lb-ft) of torque from the engine which is the successor to the turbine used in the Y2K.
The engine is mounted in a custom frame based on the Y2K, but with carbon fibre wheels, inverted Marzocchi 50mm forks, twin 320mm discs with six-pot ISR brake calipers, Motec engine management and unique ECU software.
The project cost is estimated at about £200,000 ($A400,000, $US308,000) and is still in development.
Maxicorp doesn’t intend to make the turbine bike for public sale, however they say on their website they “may be tempted to build one for those that can demonstrate they have sufficient money and expertise in handling such a bike for special occasions or ideally for those that want to add possibly the most extreme bike ever made to their current collection of automotive exotica”.