Man builds own motorcycle around Ferrari V8 engine

If you’ve ever thought motorcycles and cars have nothing in common, you should check out this Ferrari-engined bike from Denmark
 

Ferrari F355 motorcycle. - Ligalis Film/YouTube

The Ferrari F355’s V8 has never been put to such surreal use as it has been for this Danish build.

It probably didn’t occur to the engineers in Maranello in the mid-1990s that the V8 engine used in the Ferrari F355 was being put in a vehicle with only two wheels, but it did occur to Birger Hansen, a motorcycle enthusiast from Denmark.

Hansen put together what he called in 2019 the only Ferrari motorcycle in the world, using the 375bhp 3.5-litre V8 from the F355 to power a motorcycle he built himself.

It’s clearly quite the project, and for the Ferrari purists out there, the two-wheeler is at least painted red. 

Affirmatively ‘cruiser’ in its design, the bike makes use of monstrously fat tyres, a telescopic front fork, an aftermarket Akrapovic pipe, and a whacking great fan on the side.

In a video - which is from a few years ago but has been doing the rounds once more on various news sites - Hansen talks about the process of building the bike. it began with his friend, Michael Andersen, who agreed to source an engine if Hansen would build the bike. Hansen goes on to say that the build took eight years from beginning to completion.

Painted in a deep red and offset by a chrome finish on the headlight, fork, and clamp, the bike looks much more ‘old school’ than the mid-to-late-1990s. In these colours, invoked is an image of Ferrari before it built its own cars, back when it ran Alfa Romeos in the pre-war days, even.

Unfortunately for us, Mr.Hansen assures that the bike is “not for sale”. On we dream, then.

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