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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128120
least, chassis components to get Henriette's operation up and running. In fact, though, the first collaboration between the two was the creation of the prototype Voxan Scrambler by the newly established Boxer Design, which made a significant impression on its debut at the 1997 Paris Show, and has of course now entered volume production. Two years later, it was the tum of the VB 1 Sport, a joint creation of Henriette and his French-based British design consultant Glynn Kerr, using a Voxan Cafe Racer rolling chassis but badged as a Boxer, even though it made its debut on the Voxan stand as the undoubted star of the 1999 Paris Show, complete with a distinctive four-headlamp 'face,' slim lines and the kind of classy allure they sell in expensive bottles of French perfume or vintage champagne. Now, almost two years on and right bang on schedule, the Boxer VB 1 Sport has actually begun production in the ultra-modem, purposebuilt 5400 square-foot factory that Henriette has constructed in the sunny Southwest of France. The first 10 customer bikes built there have already been delivered, to start eating into the 200 firm orders for the VB 1 which Thierry has so far accepted exclusively from French clients, at a selling price of $15,200 including tax, as he gradually ramps up production from the one bike a day his current ten-man workforce is currently manufacturing to the 20 per week he projects by the end of this year. Maximum capacity of the existing plant is 1500 bikes a year, but that's only of the existing VB1 sport model, which entails a greater ingredient of Voxan components than the next new Boxer model to be launched at the Paris Show in September, the 108-hp B2 Roadster streetrod which Henriette is targeting as a serious competitor to the Ducati 54 Monster. It's also worth noting that Henriette was the first person to create and sell a desmoquattro 888 Monster back in 1993, after Ducati got cold feet from doing so themselves on the launch of the desmodue streetrod. Now taking shape in the Boxer R&D studio (see photo), this second model uses only an engine bought-in from Voxan, located in Boxer's own minimalist lightweight spaceframe using the same oval-section aluminum tubing as featured on the Triumph-engined Gladiateur six years ago, as well as an all-new running gear. When series production of this comes on line in 2003, this will take place in a new stage-two extension to the existing Boxer factory in which he plans to build 2000 examples of the B2 and other Boxer models already in the pipeline - on a pair of production lines as compared to the The Boxer Is powered by. 72-degree Voun V-twin engine, and In it's curreld guise, the bike puts out 100 horsepower, but • new, morepowerful version Is already being developed for export. Voxan-chassised VB family of bikes, which will continue to be handbuilt, as now. Total annual Boxer production will never exceed 3500 bikes, says Thierry, but while understandably concentrating at first on the French market, in order to get invaluable feedback firsthand from the debut customers of what is after all a brand-new startup marque, with the first 100 bikes to be built being sold through Voxan dealers while Boxer establishes its own network at home and abroad, Henriette plans to start exporting his products from 2002 onward, initially using the same method of working via the internet as Australian Rod Hunwick has independently hit on to sell his Hunwick Harrop Phantom 1500 cruiser product overseas. "We'll invite customers to buy one of our bikes, wherever they are in the world, and to nominate the dealership they want to have it shipped to," says Henriette. "We'll contact them, make it financially attractive for them to deal with us, ship them the bike and all necessary parts for the first year of servicing, as well as a workshop manual. Whether you're in Tahiti or Tokyo, you'll be able to buy one of our bikes as easily and with confidence through the Web, as in Toulouse." To take him at his word, log on to www.boxer-design.com. To create the VB I, Boxer buys in from Voxan an unmodified engine package in 100-hp Cafe Racer guise (conforming to the French government power limit for all motorcycles), complete with its Marelli engine-management system, the 43mm Paioli upside-down forks and horizontal rear shock underslung beneath the engine and working in compression, which are however revamped to Boxer specs, and the 220mm rear Brembo brake - the front 320mm discs and four-pot calipers appear the same as on the Cafe Racer, but are in fact upspeced Superbike-Ievel components. Boxer also buys in the two main ingredients of the Voxan chassis design, the pair of cast alloy structures comprising on the one hand the steering head and air filter housing, and on the other the swingarm pivotcum-oil tank for the dry-sump engine. However, instead of being linked by a pair of large diameter mild steel tubes to create the distinctive Tigcraft/MZ-type tubuar twin-spar Voxan chassis, on the Boxer these The frame is a stainless-steel tubular twin-spar TlgcraftlMZ-styIe design. The light chassis combined with the lightweight bodywork has kept the weight under 400 pounds dry.