2016 Motus Mst And Mstr
2016 MOTUS MST AND MSTR
CHARACTERS
SWEET HOME ALABAMA! V-4 SPORT-TOURERS FROM THE LAND OF LYNYRD SKYNYRD
PETER JONES
Every now and then a motorcycle comes along that, after the first few ham-fisted miles of riding, you just have to park on the side of the road, get off, and take a newly earned respectful look at it. The Motus MST is one of those bikes.
Motus calls its MV41650 engine the “Baby Block.”
Those two words express the humor and culture of this company. It’s fair to say a downsized half-a-V-8 is a “baby” if you’re talking about automobiles. But if you’re talking about motorcycles, a 1,650a: V-4 is a damn big baby!
The high-end Motus MST sport-touring motorcycle is now in production. It’s hand-built in AlabamaBirmingham, to be exact.
If that in total sounds unusual—American-made, hand-built, high-end, sporttouring motorcycle—that’s okay. It is unusual.
Motus employs 14 people, including founders Lee Conn and Brian Case. The significance of this is that the MST (and its even higher-performance MSTR brother) is as finely detailed as any competition from around the globe. While the MST’s base price of $30,975 might be beyond the reach of most enthusiasts, it’s fairly in line with other topshelf offerings.
The Motus doesn’t have the electronic rider’s aids of other brands, but it does come with some nifty intangibles. There’s something inherently cool about riding a brandnew motorcycle with the individuals who created it. This experience isn’t reserved just for journalists; Conn leads demo rides at events all around the country. Every rider, and every Motus buyer, gets to have a personal relationship with the founders. It’s impossible to put a price on that sort of cool factor.
All Motuses are hand-built from the crankshaft up by a team that functions like a seasoned pit crew operating under the expectation that mistakes aren’t allowed. It’s a human who turned that screw, tightened those bolts, torqued that fastener... That’s more cool factor.
Creators Conn and Case are the very humans who rode these bikes on the salt at Bonneville to set official landspeed records for the world’s fastest pushrod-engined production motorcycle. They also rode the bikes to and from Bonneville, after personally doing thousands of developmental test miles. They are nothing less than what every enthusiast would like to think a maker of motorcycles is, like George Brough or maybe Soichiro Honda.
While Conn and Case toured the country meeting with prospective dealers, they sussed out the importance of making the MST easy to work on. Technologies that didn’t conform to that were abandoned, and some internal engine parts are borrowed from proven applications with billions of miles behind them. Long live pushrods!
2016 MOTUS MST/MSTR Base price: $30,975/ $36,975 Displacement: 1650cc Claimed wt.: 585/565 lb. Seatht.: 32.0/33.5 in. Fuel capacity: 5.5 gal. Claimed hp: 165 @ 7600 rpm Claimed 123 lb.-ft. @ torque: 5000 rpm
IT’S FAIR TO SAY A DOWNSIZED HALFA-V-8 IS A “BABY” IF YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT AUTOMOBILES. BUT IF YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT MOTORCYCLES, A 1,650CC V-4 IS A DAMN BIG BABY!
After handing off MST number 00001 to their neighbors at the Barber Motorcycle Museum, Motus is now selling production bikes through its dealer network. Sure, an enthusiast can purchase a Motus out of economic nationalism. What really has meaning, however, isn’t that this bike is made in America but that it’s made of America. The MST isn’t just American by design and manufacture; it’s American by feel and culture.
If you value purity of performance, an unhindered riding experience, and the exotica of a hand-built American hot-rod motorcycle strangely capable of real-world sport-touring, stop by a Motus dealer. And then go visit Birmingham—no passport needed. Plus, the Motus comes with a two-year, unlimitedmileage warranty.
