Alternative Engineering, The American Way
Alan Cathcart brings us the most lust-worthy bikes from around the world
California is crammed with can-do customizers who ask ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?,’ all competing to create the ultimate ultrabike or the perfect four-wheeled vehicle. So it’s no coincidence that so many major manufacturers of both two-and four-wheeled machines maintain SoCal design studios and engineering shops; out west is where unorthodoxy reigns, where the improbable achieves reality, and where today’s alternative design becomes tomorrow’s convention. It’s hard to imagine the Feuling W3 Cruiser, brought to market 20 years ago in February, 2001, by 56-year-old Jim Feuling, being built anywhere else.
That said, it’s not exactly true to say no one had produced a radial three-cylinder bike engine before the W3 - Moto Guzzi built just such a prototype in 1987, and there were a handful of such specials derived from radial aircraft engines back in the vintage era. But you could never buy a motorcycle powered by such an unconventional engine package until Jim Feuling decided to put into metal a what-if idea he’d had while working with Harley-Davidson on their Twin Cam 88 engine, which debuted in 1996.
The W3 is Released
After two years of development, the Feuling W3 Cruiser hit the market, priced at a then-steep $40,000. Dallas star Larry Hagman was one of the first buyers of the improbable but innovative three-cylinder, pushrod, air-cooled bike. Very unconventional, very cool – but very California.
