Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Du Pont's p~astic motorcyc~e By James F. Quinn "All show, no go." It's supposed to be an insult, the ultimate ridicule, meant to tell the world that the owner of a flashy custom motorcycle has traded away his vehicle's function for surface glitter. But the people at Du Pont won't be hurt if you applied that phrase to their Hybrid motorcycle. From its Zytel ST wheels to its Kevlar-stiHened semi-monocoque frame, from its Rynite carburetor bodies to its Imron paint, the silver and orange sport bike was designed with "all show, no go" in mind. It's a non-running concept vehicle, built by Du Pont's Engineering Plastics division to show motorcycle designers how such materials might work in the vehicles they're developing now. The Hybrid is not so much an expression of current motorcycle design as a prediction, from Du Pont's admittedly biased point of view, about motorcycling construction five or more years down the road. It may look a bit like Bimota's experimental Tesi (both bikes use a 400cc Honda V-4 engine), but while the centerhub-steering Tesi points the way to chassis and suspension changes you may see in production soon, the Hybrid's example could alter the very materials future motorcyles are made £rom. In all, 19 Du Pont plastics and elasLomers (materials WiLh rubber-like qualities) are used on the Hybrid in nearly 60 applications. Aside from the plastic wheels and composite frame, most of the materials are used for such mundane bits as radiator hoses and spark plug boots. "Some of the uses are fully com0 o 16, mercial," Du Pont spokesman Bill Digel said, "others are simply a gleam in the designer's eye. But there is not anyone of them that is impossible; they're all reasoned choices." The Kevlar-reinforced frame, for example, "certainly is theoretically possible," Digel said. The material works well in the hulls of oceangoing racing boats, and may be perfect in a properly-designated mOlorcycle frame, "but whether it's practical in the near-term is hard to say." The ZyteJ ST used in the Hybrid's wheels takes terrific abuse when molded into BMX bicycle wheels, and it may be quite appropriate for motorcycles. But all anyone's sure of at the moment is that it'll support the Hybrid in a trade-show display. Du Pont considered developing the Hybrid as a fully-tested machine, but decided instead to build it simply as a rolling product showcase. It'll be up to the designers to test the materials' to determine whether they're stronger, lighter, or cheaper than the metals they'll compete against in motorcycle use. Du Pont's Japanese subsidiary began developing the Hybrid more than a year ago for display in the 25th annual Tokyo motor show last year. They hired a Japanese design firm, K.K. Dox, to build the machine using a mixture of commercially available pieces, such as the Honda engine and suspension and the Kevlar-reinforced final drive belt, and specially-built c?mponents like the wheels and chasSIS. Du Pont has done this sort of thing before; its Hybrid cars have been shown at auto and trade shows in the past. But this was the firm's first use of a motorcycle to showcase its products. According to Digel, it seemed sensible to use a motorcycle to attract business from Japan's motorcycle companies. The Hybrid was first shown in the United States this Spring at the Design Engineering Show in Chicago's McCormick Place. [t was displayed later at the Geneva auto show in Switzerland, and is currently appearing at trade shows in this country. With its full fairing, disappearing headlight, and integrated mirror-turn signals, the Hybrid is fun to look at. "It's a pretty sexy-looking machine," Digel agreed. "It's too bad nobody makes one Like it." With engineering plastics finding their way into more and more consumer products, the image of plastic as an inferior material is changing. Plastics and composites ar.e.tuming up in high-quality cameras and lenses, auto body parts (Pontiac's Fiero, for example), even airplanes. "These materials are orders of magnitude better" than the inferior polystyrene consumer products that contributed to plastic's "cheap junk" reputation, Digel said. "These materials are not junk by any means," he said. "When they're used properly and manufactured properly, they can be quite competitive with metals. And a final poi!!t they don't rust!" Du Pont hasn't analyzed the impact the Hybrid bike has had on product sales, he said, "but there's no doubt that we've communicated a good deal with it. "Industries tend to move very slowly, and it might be too soon, only a year after its initial showing, to see new applications in motorcycles stemming from this. In four or five years, say, there might be quite a bit to talk about." I I • " ~ > Jij ( I I f 1" : { I

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