Hunwick Hallam / Hunwick Harrop - Aussie Innovation

Photo Courtesy Richard James

There has been a remarkable amount of innovation in motorcycle design that has come from Down Under. Australian and New Zealander designers and tinkerers seem to have a particular penchant for crafting some of the most interesting and forward-thinking machines the world has seen, all in isolation from the existing networks. These clever displays of ingenuity often seem driven by a variety of factors – perhaps it is their distance from existing industries, or their down-home ingenuity brought on by that isolation from the rest of the world, and more than likely it is their strong fondness for all things loud and fast. One company came to the fore in the late 90s with the promise of putting an Australian-made motorcycle on the world stage, with a radical clean-sheet design that made the rest of the industry take notice. The Hunwick Hallam almost single-handedly kickstarted an Australian motorcycle industry that would have dusted the competition the road and the track, but the realities of the market would doom it to obscurity.

The Irving-Vincent - Anachronistic Trackday Missile

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The Irving-Vincent

Let’s say you are the head of a successful engineering firm in Australia. You have a full compliment of advanced casting, prototyping and milling machinery at your disposal and years of R&D experience in various avenues. And you happen to be passionate about motorcycles.

Vee Two Ducati Alchemy SV-1 - Modernized Aussie Bevel Head

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Every few years we in the Ducati community have a crisis when the latest generation of Ducs are unveiled. Inevitably the old hats and stodgy luddites will bemoan the commercialization of the company and how it has lost its way compared to back in THEIR DAY when they build the best goddamned bikes with no nevermind paid to profitability (or reliability). It happened when they dropped the dry clutch. It happened when the 1199 eschewed all the traditional Ducati traits. It happened when Pierre Terblanche was given free run in the design department. Hell, some purists claim the last real Ducatis rolled off the line in 1983 before Cagiva got their meat hooks on the brand.

So it was in the 1980s when the Pantah rubber-band motors started replacing the bevel drive twins and the purists moaned that Ducati had lost its way.

Drysdale V8 - Homebrew Aussie Eight

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When it comes to motorcycle production, Australia is not usually the first country that comes to mind. Even neighbouring New Zealand, with legends like Burt Munro and John Britten, has a reputation for clever motorcycle engineering – but rarely do people think of unique bikes when they picture the Aussie landscape.

Shame, that – because one of the most fascinating motorcycles in the world was made in Australia. Enter the Drysdale V8, the pet project and hand-built marvel produced down under by an enthusiastic engineer/mechanic by the name of Ian Drysdale.