The Alien Chopper
THE CONCEPT for the Alien Chopper developed a few weeks after the 2005 Gold Coast Bike Week. I was drawing a mental picture of a mean and nasty looking machine with an aggressive presence. The vision that was taking place was for something with a very minimalist look. But I didn't want something that just looked really cool—I wanted it to work well and something that would last.
I wanted the engine to be a feature of the beast—the heart, if you like, to stand alone—to look like it was slung from the under belly of the beast, free of all the things you normally see hanging off the engine. It followed that the gearbox should be separate but still be part of the guts of it all.