Building the Budget Britten

BUILDING THE BUDGET BRITTEN

NEW ZEALANDER JOHN Britten has good cause to be satisfied with the way his summer has gone. His avant-garde V1000 racer logged more than 2000 racing miles in the hands of rider Jason McEwan and won 20 consecutive races in New Zealand’s hotly contested F1 series. Does this prove that the carbon-fiber-framed, girder-forked, fuel-injected V-Twin is thoroughly developed and very reliable? Yes, probably it does.

And this doubtless will be a very pleasant notion for the lucky customers of the 10 VI000 replicas Britten now is constructing, and offering for sale for the breathtaking price of $75,000 each. If you want one, you’d best hurry. Britten reports that all but a couple of the bikes already are spoken for. And why not? Each customer gets a perfect 1/i2th-scale miniature of the machine, plus a video-tape record of his motorcycle’s construction.

Equally interesting, though, is news that Britten is engaged in discussions with a major multi-national automotive company interested in acquiring the manufacturing rights for the VI000. If that can be accomplished, this unnamed company will put the machine into production in less costly, street-legal form. Says Britten, “We’re very close. I’m hoping we can make a deal.” If the deal is made, Britten says, he’ll start work on his next project: the world’s fastest and most advanced Single.

Alan Cathcart