CURTISS ZEUS E-CRUISER
FULL TEST
P110
Rebel With
A Cause
C
liché though it may be, it's also self-evident
that beauty lies in the eyes of a beholder—
but even so, pretty much every entrant in
the fast-growing street-legal EV marketplace has
seemed, until now, to be a visual compromise at
best, aesthetically challenged at worst.
Okay, the Isle of Man TT-winning MotoCzysz E-
racer was fine art on two wheels, but in customer
street-bike terms even the different variants of the
Italian Energica, while undeniably easy on the
eye, still attempt to visually gloss over the fact that
they happen to be electric motorcycles. The com-
bustion engine package and fuel tank which they
and other such bikes would normally carry have
been replaced by the array of batteries needed
for any decent range, as well as the motor these
power, and the controller that enables that.
Until now, E-bike designers have tried their
best to hide these away in trying to produce a
"normal-looking" motorcycle, with nobody dar-
ing to make a design feature out of the batteries
themselves, or the motors. But that's all changed
with the advent of the new Curtiss Zeus launched
in May at California's prestigious Quail Motor-
cycle Gathering, whose judges selected it as
the show's Most Innovative Motorcycle, ahead of
several other electric two-wheelers on display.
The Zeus is set to reach production in Septem-
ber next year, with prices starting at $30,000—
and the fact that this has been produced by the
company once known as Confederate Motors,
former builder of genuinely iconic V-twin power
cruisers like the Wraith, Hellcat and Combat
Fighter, brings added poignancy in its wake.
Confederate Motors is dead, and in
its place comes a new American
manufacturer linking the past with
the present, Curtiss Motorcycles
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHIL HAWKINS
