A ‘hubless motorcycle with an airplane engine’ – that is how the designer of this wacky motorcycle concept describes his handiwork. Tarso Marques, the name may be familiar to Formula 1 fans. The Brazilian former Minardi driver has taken to building custom motorcycles in his retirement under the moniker TMC. And, the latest of his creations TMC Dumont is sheer insanity. First look and it gets you thinking, ‘is it an art piece or does it actually work?’ Well, it does and how! It’s been fitted with a massive six-cylinder engine from a 1960s aircraft.
The concept art bike looks like an intricate amalgamation of the future and the past. The future, because those wheels are anything but average (you could actually sit inside them, but try doing that only when the bike’s parked). And the past, well because the engine in question is a 300 hp six-cylinder Rolls-Royce unit from a 1960s aircraft.
TMC Dumont has fully-leaked 36-inch wheels, which are the largest ever fitted to a motorcycle. In terms of practicality, we’re not sure how exactly does a rider turn the motorcycle or, for that matter, protect their backside which is dangerously close to the rear wheel.
Mounting an aircraft engine onto a motorcycle must have been a Herculean task and transferring those 300 horses to the wheels even more so. Hence, a continuously variable transmission (CVT) was developed from scratch for the TMC Dumont.
The fantastic bit about Tarso Marques’ impractical and ambitious concept is that it works. There have been a lot many such art bikes that never taste the tarmac, but TMC Dumont is apparently rideable. Tarso can always ride it to the bike shows the motorcycle will head to, instead of loading it at the back of a truck.
Tarso’s design concepts have won big at prominent bike shows. The TMC Dumont won the ‘Best of Show’ at this year’s Daytona Bike Week. The Dumont is a tribute to Alberto Santos-Dumont, who is a national hero in Tarso’s home country and has been a pioneer in aviation.
