Hazen Motorworks has finished the Ferrari V8-powered custom motorcycle
A project to mount a Ferrari V8 engine in a motorcycle is now finished, as Hazen Motorworks fires up the HF355 for the first time
The latest social media posts from Hazen Motorworks show that the Ferrari-powered custom motorcycle is finally finished!
It's a project we've been following for a while now, and the more we saw, the more impressed we were by the build and that 400bhp Ferrari engine. For starters, mounting any car engine in a bike frame requires equal parts engineering expertise and lunacy, but the way Maxwell Hazen, the man behind the machine, has gone about the build is also seriously impressive.
And now it's finished, and with the bodywork fitted to the machine, it looks all the more impressive. With the engine being used as a stressed member, the bike's chassis hardware is bolted to it directly, maximising the visual impact of the bike.
To create the bodywork for the bike, Hazen used polystyrene to help him model the form of the bike, resulting in a look that is eerily reminiscent of a Moto2 bike from a few years ago. What isn't clear is how efficiently the bike will be cooled, given that the large radiator of the Ferrari F355 has been ditched, and is now replaced by two dinky underslung rads.
Mated to the engine is a custom underslung swingarm that wouldn’t look out of place on a WorldSBK grid, while the seat unit, which doubles as the fuel tank, is another example of simple design, done properly. To help get around the size of the engine, Hazen utilised a novel horizontally-mounted rear shock absorber from Ohlins, and a gearbox and transfer case that was borrowed from a Motus V4.
Previous clips from Hazen show the bike being put through its paces on a dyno, and while the final numbers produced by the Ferrari V8 were not disclosed, the sounds emitted from the SCProject stubby exhausts confirmed that this thing is a serious motorcycle. Now, though, it can be seen running and getting ridden out of the Hazen workshop, and we can only hope that it will one day make it to the UK so we can check it out in person!
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
