Victory has taken the wraps off their #Project156 race bike.
Built with help from Roland Sand Design and teased in a mercifully short promotional campaign, Victory says #Project156 is a hint towards the company’s plans, with a liquid-cooled motor that “represents the future performance of the Victory brand.”
They say it’s a prototype engine, but it appears to be a reworked version of the Indian Scout’s powerplant, with “Twin 67mm throttles with downdraft runners for maximum power and torque as well as a performance valvetrain including titanium intake and exhaust valves.” In other words, they didn’t just slap a big bore kit on a standard motor and call ‘er quits. This bike should rip.
Where it’s headed, it will need plenty of performance on tap. As Rod Krois, Victory’s General Manager said in their official press release for the bike, “The grueling conditions at Pike’s Peak provide the perfect proving ground for our new Project 156 race engine.” The Pikes Peak International Hillclimb runs 20 km up the mountain, with 156 turns and climbing 1440 m from its its start to its finish 4300 m above sea level. It’s chewed up and spit out many unprepared racers, with its unique conditions making it hard to effectively tune a bike for top performance the whole way.
There are a few dozen photos of the bike below, if you want to see the finished product more closely.
GALLERY
Check out all the pics that go with this story! Click on the main sized pic to transition to the next or just press play to show in a slideshow.
[…] nothing even remotely resembling a flat tracker in their showrooms. Even last year’s Project 156 — a tracker-style bike built around an engine derived (it appears) from the motor in the […]
[…] started talking about a sportier, performance-driven future for their marque when they debuted the Project 156 concept bike at Pikes Peak last spring. They’d already bought Brammo’s motorcycle business, which […]
[…] motorcycle business, released their own version of the Empulse RR electric superbike, built a one-off custom to race Pikes Peak, raced their electric bike at the Isle of Man and announced the company was going to shift towards […]
[…] came out of the crash about a week ago, it sounded as if the whole idea might be a write-off; Victory had spent a lot of money and energy getting their prototype racer to Pikes Peak, but after Don Canet (editor at Cycle World) put the machine in the weeds, it initially appeared […]
Ever seen a Panigale?
Those exhaust pipes are sick! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full 360º loop before.
Harley built the XR750, and as a powerplant its lasted over 40 years.
Not too shabby for something that’s ‘racing only’…
Nice! Where’s the street version?
If all they do is to make a very few excellent racing bikes to pump the brand then only sell flaccid, tepid, overweight junk “cruisers” to street riders, it’ll just be another pathetic Hardley-Ableson. We already have one too many of those.
There are some smart people at Polaris/Victory.
As long as they can keep the eccentric engineering types away, they could make this thing rock.
Rear suspension looks like something Erik Buell might have dreamed up …