The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

2007 America’s Most Beautiful Motorcycle?

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Swingshot by Dotson Design

This is America’s Most Beautiful Motorcycle? The Grand National Roadster Show was held in Pomona, California last month and among all of the cars they had some motorcycles, I don’t know how many, but when they passed out the awards, this one was judged most beautiful. … I don’t get it. I mean, I REALLY don’t get it. It’s called the Swingshot by Dotson Design.

Oomega by Chemical Choppers

Until the AMD World Championship, I can’t recall seeing a bike like this until Chemical Choppers showed up with their black custom called Oomega. Very odd, very different and technically interesting but probably an acquired taste. Then the Roadster Show comes up and we have another bike built along the same lines, but, in all honesty I think Oomega carried it off a bit better. I still don’t get it. Either one.

Link: Grand National Roadster Show
Link: AMD World Championship

Comments

  1. Well…it just goes to prove: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

    In my opinion, it’s ugly.

  2. I’d call it a flexy flier, not that it would fly… In fact the frame would probably bottom out quite a bit while it was bouncing up and down.

    I think the Titanic (the world’s most beautiful cruise ship) couldn’t steer clear of an iceburg and this bike couldn’t even turn a corner. Maybe that’s the key to beauty; rediculousness.

    -todd

  3. The top bike is just plain ugly and useless.

    The bottom bike while not likely ridable or practical is creatively beautiful in my opinion, a work of art.

  4. I agree completely with the Kneeslider and Luke and Mayakovski (and probably the other guy, too, if I were a bit more sure what he meant.)

  8. The Ducati 1976 900 SS is a beautiful motorcycle. This is an ugly caricature of a motorcycle. Surely both artistic merit and function are needed to qualify as a beautiful motorcycle.

  9. the first bike is mechanically interesting. so is a wheat harvesting combine. being mechanically interesting doesn’t make you pretty. in this case, it makes you hideous. it’s hard to look at. the second bike is like something out of “A Nightmare Before Christmas” certainly not a “riders bike” it actually is pretty (in my opinion at least) maybe if the two builders got together, they could make something spectacular. or the single most ridiculous, unbearably ugly creation to ever sit on two wheels.

  10. I think the show is responsible for that. They are trying to turn the tide on builds. Putting more value on weird stuff than the truly GOOD stuff. Like Barrett Jackson did with the muscle cars. With the right people looking and bidding you would be surprised how you can turn the industry around.

  11. First bike is truly hideous. The second bike is a flowing work of art, one that, when I showed it to my friend, was said to be “prettier without the rider”. It’s a work of art, a finely shaped, gorgeous sculpture. Note that I said sculpture, not a motorcycle. Horrific, when you think about it, for the rideability… But have a scale model of that on your coffee table? Think about THAT.

  12. The black one is gorgeous from a sculptural standpoint, but it doesn’t look like it could actually be ridden. The cream colored one has no grace to it. Functionally, it’s interesting, but I wouldn’t call it beautiful.

  13. Pretty much what all the others wrote. The Oomega, entirely impractical, is nonetheless a beautiful piece of art. The Swingshot is clunky, awkward, unbalanced, obviously voted on by aesthetically challenged retard car nuts who’d prefer a ’74 Eldorado to a ’70 Hemi Cuda.

  14. I don’t want whatever those judges are smoking. Beautiful? Artzi Fartzi bizarre maybe, but not beautiful. It’s of it’s own style. Anyone riding it would look ridiculous on it because it is so very different.

  15. IMO…Neither are any prettier/uglier/more functional than anything Arlen Ness builds…or Cory, for that matter. BUT for me, the odd thing is why he got an accolade when clearly he ripped off some other guy, who came up with the idea before him? I know imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but is this where the imagination is headed?

  16. These are not what a motorcycle is. A motorcycle is something you can ride, anything else is a waste. It’s all about form and function not artsie fartsie. Most exotic art makes people stop and stare and wonder what was going through the artists mind at the time he created it, they succeeded.

  17. anyone have a link to the other bikes that were available?

    What is more perplexing is that I believe Robert Steffano of Acme Rocketbike had entered the National Roadster Show in years past with his wicked R1 Cafe & Duc 969 customs. What happened between now & then?

    Richard – thanks for the link. I dig the orange ’57 Olds

  18. What a curiousity those bikes are. Not that I’d want to ride them since they’re as long as my car and probably less agile.

    In the search for a distinct look, I think these designers must have hit their heads on something kind of hard to end up with these totally impractical and goofy looking bikes.

  19. I think both designers did a hit of acid and then began welding and hit stuff with hammers and then when everything was over and the high was over this is what they had. I see the artist point in the design work but I think they could have done the thinking on the bike part of the design more thinking. The idea of the front wheel being out there is cool but with the way it is bad.

  22. The bike on the bottom (oomega) actually works and is ridable. Not meant for road use, but it works anyway. There is even a brake built inside the clutch (or somewhere around that area), so it´s not just a scuplture as someone said, if you know what I mean. Probably not.

    Built in Finland, by the way.

  24. well, i guess there is one redeeming quality of the swing-shot – the chopper stretch without the horrible geometry. assuming you think the stretch is a good thing. . .