Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Monster Motorbike For Motor Show

The Australian monster will be on show at the Melbourne Motor Show which runs from 29 February. What’s the Australian monster, you might ask? Is it a mutant kangaroo? No. Is it perhaps a pet Tazmanian devil? Wrong again. It’s a 13 ton/ 28 660 pound two-wheeler devised by Ray Baumann, a man who used to make a living out of trying to stop his own living. He was a stunt driver who has also driven trains, among other lifestyle activities.

Powered by a Detroit Diesel truck engine, mated to a 6-speed Allison automatic, this thing stands almost 9 metres/ 29.5ft long and more than 3 metres/ 9.8ft high. In fact, as seen in these pics, a full grown man doesn’t even stand up to one of the Monster Motorbike’s wheels. Caterpillar provided these wheels straight from their front-end loader, a beast on its own, used to terrorizing the earth in all manner of sorts.

"We did stunt driving for quite a few years, broke a few records and broke my back a few times, so this is a way of taking a bit more care," says Baumann.
"Now we crush things, which is definitely less risky than jumping them - we still do jump things, but not at the Melbourne Motor Show."
The thrill it appears, comes from rolling over smaller objects like school buses or trucks like a Ford’s F 150 for instance.

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