VTR Customs: the Sprint Bike that Spits Fire

Inspired by a fighter plane that changed the course of WWII, one bike engineer built a flame-throwing ride he hoped could win the craziest drag race of all.

Words: Tom Guise

Photos: Photocab/Andri Margadant

The Sultans of Sprint isn’t your regular motorcycle drag race. Sure, it’s about launching your bike from a standstill and outgunning your opponent along a 200m strip of tarmac, but at this series of five races across Europe, speed is only part of the equation – 70 per cent, to be precise.

The other 30 per cent is divided between creativity and craziness in two challenges: ‘Style & Engineering’ and ‘Scary Factor’, with extra ‘Party Monster Bonus’ points. ‘Scary Factor’ demands a steed whose very presence unnerves your foe; the bonus challenge is crueller – the rider must limbo under a bar set at the height of their bike. This is a contest of substance, style and something else entirely.

Daniel Weidmann had to consider all these factors when devising his entry for this year’s series. As owner of Swiss mod shop VTR Customs, it’s not something he’s unaccustomed to, having entered the tournament in previous years, as well as taking the podium and jury awards at the more sensible Essenza sprint challenge. But 2018 was different: alongside the usual ‘Freak Class’ (a near-anything-goes category for 1600cc fourstroke hot rods) was the new ‘Factory Class’, where motorcycle marques team up with custom workshops to build a ride that’s 100-percent unique. VTR’s partner was BMW Motorrad, which supplied a brand-new R 1200 R as the base for the project.

VTR Customs took actual cockpit instruments from a real Spitfire plane and added them to the bike

“We wanted to build our most complex bike ever,” says Weidmann, who was inspired by his love of WWII fighter planes – specifically the RAF’s iconic Supermarine Spitfire. Eschewing modern computer design in favour of hand-drawn blueprints, Weidmann and his team used hammers, sandbags and a manual wheeling machine to beat raw aluminium into a torpedo-shaped body shell reminiscent of the WWII warbird. Genuine Spitfire cockpit instruments were added, including an aircraft starter switch, and – in honour of the plane’s name and the flames that would sometimes shoot from its Rolls-Royce Merlin engine – Weidmann included an actual fire-spitting exhaust system. Scary Factor achieved.

The bike frame was dramatically extended and lowered. Everything from design to bodywork was done by hand

In order to meet the Factory Class power-to-weight ratio regulations, VTR didn’t tamper with the two-cylinder boxer engine, but the frame was extended by 20cm and lowered from 130cm to 90cm, making it a bastard to earn the Party Monster Bonus or, indeed, to ride the thing at all.

However, with the bike’s 125bhp heart capable of pushing 257kph, VTR team rider Amelie Mooseder was able to claim second place at this May’s opening Sultans of Sprint event at Monza. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few, as a famous Spitfire fan once said.

sultansofsprint.com