The upcoming CCM Spitfire will combine adequate power output with a lightweight chassis, making for a very interesting new factory street tracker.
CCM announced the new motorcycle on its Facebook page yesterday, saying the bike will be unveiled at the MCN Bike Show in the UK on February 17. CCM published several photos of a mock-up of the bike, saying it’s available in April. That date raised a few eyebrows, and caused some suspicion the machine is an April Fools Day hoax. We’ve been told otherwise.
Making a street tracker is a bold move, as CCM (originally Clews Competition Motorcycles) has traditionally been an off-road specialist, starting by adapting factory BSAs for better performance in the dirt. Based in the UK, CCM isn’t a name you’d associate with flat track racing, but this new bike could actually be coming out at the right time, as the street track/flat track genre seems to be gaining more interest in recent years.
As for the bike: It’s powered by what appears to be a variation of the old Husqvarna-designed 600 cc liquid-cooled single-cylinder four-stroke motor, with six-speed transmission and EFI, as currently used by SWM in some of its lineup (this version has titanium valves). The motor supposedly makes 55 hp and 58 Nm of torque. That’s enough to keep up with traffic, but hardly shocking power.
The Spitfire gets interesting when you consider the bike is also claimed to have a 120.8 kg dry weight. That should put curb weight in the area of 130 kg. The resulting power-to-weight ratio (0.46 hp/kg) should make the bike a much more enticing ride, if those figures are all true.
The bike’s weight is kept down by a hand-welded frame, built from T45 steel, supposedly the same stuff used originally in the Spitfire fighter plane from World War II.
Naturally, as a flat-tracker, those front and rear wheels are 19-inchers. Seat height is 830 mm, fuel capacity is 14 litres, and front and rear brake discs (320 mm and 245 mm) come courtesy of Brembo. CCM included a hydraulic clutch. The front forks are rebound- and compression-adjustable, and the rear shock is fully-adjustable. There’s 150 mm of suspension travel at both ends.
All this sounds great, but here’s some even more interesting news: CCM is allegedly planning to use this same engine to build a GP600 adventure bike, with a Euro4-compliant powerplant. The current GP450 model doesn’t meet that standard, meaning it will have to be upgraded or drop from the lineup. So why not just build a 600, which would also quiet all the complainers saying the 450 is too little motor for the price tag? It sounds win-win to us.
The husky te630 engine was a good design. Very little vibration and pretty robust. Rode it for 2 years. Glad to see it in use in so many bikes now.
Looks really trick, in a CAD/CAM drawing. I wonder if it will look quite as much so once they add turn signals big enough to be street legal, ABS brakes (required in the EU now?), and make it meet the Euro IV emissions specs.
And how about some real fenders while they’re at it ?