There aren’t many times in my life when I’ve seen a motorcycle command a price tag of over half a million dollars. But then again, there aren’t many motorcycles that come fitted with a 3.5-liter V8 engine from the Ferrari F355.
Here at New Atlas, we’ve covered Max Hazan’s bespoke HF355 from its early days right up to the living, breathing, pre-finished motorcycle. Now, not only has the motorcycle been completed, but it’s also been quickly bought, fetching more than US$500,000!
It took Hazan, an award-winning custom motorcycle builder from Los Angeles, around 18 months to finish the HF355. What we see now is a fire-spitting red-colored monster that revs to nearly 10,000 rpm!
The HF355 is named after its 1999 Ferrari F355 donor, which sacrificed its 3.5-liter V-8 for the custom motorcycle. That engine produces around 400 hp at the crank, bolstering a top speed of 187 mph (~300 km/h). That kind of power on a motorcycle that weighs 585 lb (265 kg) dry means that the HF355 boasts a power-to-weight ratio akin to some hypercars.
Shaik Ridzwan / Hazan Motorworks
Of course, that kind of engine couldn’t possibly sit in a traditional motorcycle frame. So Hazan built a bespoke chromoly front trellis frame in which the engine acts as a stressed member, with the transmission and rear suspension mounted to its rear and sides, respectively.
And for all the bulk of that supercar engine on there, you’d think the HF355 would be unbalanced. But instead, the weight is almost equally distributed.
Almost every component you see on there was designed, built, and put together by Hazan himself, down to every nut and bolt. That’s all the more impressive when you consider he uses a 6,500-lbMoriseki lathe and manual mills to shape parts by hand instead of CNC equipment.
Shaik Ridzwan / Hazan Motorworks
The bodywork is made up of 16 unique carbon-fiber components, which is hand-shaped from foam blocks. Each piece was molded and reproduced using carbon-fiber resin infusion, a process more commonly seen in aerospace manufacturing.
As for the components on board, you get Marchesini wheels, Brembo GP4X brakes, Öhlins FGR forks, and a TTX rear shock. Electronics? They’re almost entirely stripped away.
Hazan took apart the original Ferrari systems and replaced them with a specially designed configuration that uses an AMP EFI ECU. It keeps an eye on everything and logs everything, but there is zero intervention anywhere.
Shaik Ridzwan / Hazan Motorworks
For all its engineering, there are no rider aids, no traction control, no cornering assist, nothing on there that would match superbikes that cost a tenth of the HF355. Thus, the quiet, analog-style cockpit.
But electronics are hardly the reason someone would shell out $500,000 on this motorcycle. It’s the engine. “It sounded like an Indy car in the pits,” says Hazan. “At full throttle, it’s absolutely wild – like warp speed in a sci-fi.”
On an early test run, Hazan thought he had gone all out, only to realize he had only pulled on half of the throttle. Sheesh. But you’d imagine something like this would be a menace to control at slower speeds. On the contrary, it’s surprisingly “manageable,” as Hazan explains. And, for reference, here’s how it sounds in real life.
This utter monstrosity wears a deep, bespoke red paint job, which was carried out by Hitoshi, a renowned expert in bespoke car paint and Hazan’s longstanding colleague. I love how the engine is left to be the main attraction; everything else is purely in a supporting role.
The one-off motorcycle recently fetched more than $500,000 to a lucky collector we don’t know much about. What we do know is that someone somewhere would be sleeping happily tonight knowing they’ve got a motorcycle in the garage that could smoke most superbikes – and embarrass a few Ferraris while it’s at it.
Source: Hazan Motorworks via Robb Report