PROPERTY developer John Britten has done what every motorcycling enthusiast dreams of.
In a small shed in the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch, he has designed and built one of the most unconventional motorcycles in the world.
His Cardinal Britten V1000 twin-cylinder, four-stroke motorcycle, with a top speed of 298 kilometres per hour, is battling the big factory works bikes.
The American magazine Cycle World declared Mr Britten's bike had more innovation between its two wheels than most NASA space shots.
Features include a revolutionary girder front suspension, a ducted cooling system, carbon-fibre wheels and an engine which doubles as the chassis.
It cost less than US$27,000 and the only standard parts are the tyres and a few springs. The rest Mr Britten had made at a local foundry.
A Cycle World writer enthused: ''If I were head honcho at a motorcycle company in Japan, Germany, Italy or America, I'd march right down the hallway . . . and ask how it is that one man working in a shed in Christchurch could have out-teched my entire engineering department.'' In 1991, a Britten machine finished second at the Daytona meeting in the United States. Last year, it led the event before withdrawing with battery failure.
