This Bizarre Road-Going Aircraft is Powered By a Motorcycle, For Real

Will this rare Pulse Autocycle roll again (this time, with liquid cooling)?

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Janaki Jitchotvisut

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Aug 19, 2024 at 7:49am ET

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It's not quite peanut butter and jelly levels of classic combo, but motorcycles and aircraft have a looooooooong history of going well together.

From aircraft OEMs that went on to make motorcycles (looking at you, Piaggio and BMW) to the proud tradition of aircraft engineers who have also been way into motorcycles (see also the mad radial chopper used in Furiosa and originally built by aircraft engineer and instructor John Levey).

But even though that's true, most folks who've made the switch from aircraft world to motorcycle world haven't tried to cross-pollinate them as thoroughly as aircraft designer Jim Bede did with the Pulse Autocycle.

If you're unfamiliar with the Pulse Autocycle, there's a full history at the link above that you can read if you want to catch up. For now, though, I'll tell you that only a few hundred of them were ever made, trickling out through the 1980s as ownership of the design changed hands a couple of times.

It's also important, for the purposes of this video, to know that the Autocycle was always powered by motorcycle engines from the very beginning. However, since they were originally constructed when they were, the engines used were air-cooled Yamaha 400s and Honda 450s, and not the liquid-cooled Suzuki GSX-R you'll see if you watch this video.

As Craig (aka the Bearded Mechanic) and his buddy Sean from Bikes and Beards spend most of this video trying to remedy, it's the airflow that's the biggest challenge with this GSX-R-powered Autocycle.

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Comments

It's still doing much better than it was about three years ago when they first encountered it (and it wasn't powered by an entire GSX-R sitting behind the back seat). I mean, it's at least running now, and at one point Craig even comments that this is the most confident he's felt riding in one of their sketchy creations.

But like many a creative solution, the liquid-cooled Gixxer that's hiding behind all that cool roadgoing aircraft bodywork is now running a serious risk of overheating if it's run at highway speeds for significant lengths of time. That's why they spend a whole bunch of time crafting cardboard-aided design aluminum air ducting solutions to try to guide a bit more air back through the bodywork to cool the GSX-R's radiator.

Running on backroads at lower speeds (and more importantly, revs) is manageable. They discover this by taking one of the most hilarious two-up rides you're likely to ever see, and which only goes to further demonstrate that if you're going to do sketchy shit, you should only ever do it with a buddy who's willing to duct tape a mirror to their boot and sit in an extremely compromising position as a passenger.

Just, um, watch the video to understand the meaning of "ride or die," is my advice. Get you a wrenching buddy like that.