The Rolls Royce Allison, 250 series gas turbine makes 320 HP @ 52,000 rpm, (286-HP @ rear wheel) and 425-ft/lbs @ 2,000-rpm and it will run on diesel, biodiesel or kerosene. It’s the kind of thing that leaves everyone smiling, except maybe your enviro-neighbor who still drives an old VW bus and worships Al Gore. For the rest of us, if you can afford it, go for it.
Link: MTT Y2K on eBay – auction over
Manufacturer – Marine Turbine Technologies
Mule says
I saw one at the Quail last May. It’s pretty much a big fricking lump of a motorcycle. And then the guy fired it up! I think every man, woman and child were drawn towards the bike like a huge people magnet that was meant to ultimately destroy their eardrums. It was like something that was very bad and evil, but nobody cared. They couldn’t resist. Loud, crazy, useless. I wonder if this guy will take payments?
Mule says
What does it sound like? If you see a jet at an airport, walk out and stand next to the engine and then tell the pilot to go ahead and fire it up. That would be close to what it sounds like. You wouldn’t want to fire it up a 6:00am in your neighborhood and ride down the street to work.
Phoebe says
I’d love to see one of these in action.
Mike1200 says
Very nice machine, but about as practical as a Ferrari in Manhattan.
Although there is a lot more than just exhaust noise to this beast, I can see it now…”honest Mr Policeman, it’s factory exhaust!”
Jay Allen says
Jill Taylor: ” You put a jet engine on a riding mower? Why? ”
Tim Toolman Taylor ” Because somebody had to do it ”
from episode two
Ken says
Love it!
B50 Jim says
For what it has to cost, I’d want a tailsection that doesn’t look a a grade-school cardboard art project. But I suppose the point is to have the most outrageous bike in the state, never mind what it looks like. Having been up close and personal to a turbine-powered entry at a tractor pull, I can attest that your neighbors for three blocks around will call in noise complaints when you fire this baby up! Totally useless and irrelevant, but I’d sure love to see, and hear, it running at top end. How ’bout at Bonneville?
Mike1200 says
Maybe the ideas is that if it’s going >that< fast, you can't really tell what it looks like anyway…
Hawk says
Practicality … hell. If I had the money, I’d buy one and set it up in the living room.
Dr Robert Harms says
“I’d love to see one of these in action”
You REALLY wouldn’t. Bruce Rossmeyer had one and used to start it up and run down Beach Drive in front of his dealership during bike week. The noise really wasn’t that bad but the exhaust heat was INCREDIBLE wiuth an intense heat plume extending 12-15 feet behind it. It was so bad that you would not have been able to sit at a traffic light behind him on a motorcycle and it likely would damage the paint/plastic bumper on a car similarly placed.
Nicolas says
hmm, that’s an idea …
todd says
um, all my enviro-neighbors drive Prius’s. The air-cooled VW is pretty much the all-time worst polluting vehicle. I own two.
I’d rather have a CBR250. I couldn’t imagine trying to muscle this barge around Redwood Road and Pinehurst Road every day. I guess I wouldn’t feel nearly as tough at the local biker hang out though.
-todd
Paul Crowe - "The Kneeslider" says
You’re probably right on the Prius. Actually, I think some of those old VW buses are pretty cool, especially the variety with about 14 windows or thereabouts, all those small ones along the roof line. Very slow but still very cool.
Mule says
I have a Honda Element. My CHP buddy called it, “The new VW bus”. It’s a lot better actually, having owned 3 VW buses and made 3 trips coast to coast.
Stan says
I’m not an expert by any means… but. It is my understanding that any used car would be less polluting than a brand new Prius. Mainly because a used car does not need to be manufactured but also i have heard that the batteries used in the Prius are not too friendly either.
Kenny says
The ciblet is great craic, like a hyperactive kid makes a load of noise but doesn’t get anywhere fast. And it’s probably the closest thing to a Y2K at making a high pitched scream.
If you ever get one remember to leave most of what you know about mechanical sympathy at the door.
Pushrod says
IIRC, Leno said he’d had to buy a couple front bumpers for cars that got too close behind his Y2K at a light.
He said the scariest behavior of the bike is that the turbine lags when you twist the throttle to accelerate; but it also lags (meaning it is still pushing) when you let off the throttle. And the lag is a couple of seconds…
B50 Jim says
Even Leno would agree this isn’t a daily rider. It’s something for special occasions or gobbling miles at ludicrous speed. No matter; most public roads and highways are totally unsuited for the kind of speeds this bike can make. At 220, a mild dip in the Interstate is like hitting a lane divider. A Bots dot is like a boulder. Most riders don’t have the skill to handle this machine at its design speed. The crash would spread fragments for miles.
Scotduke says
I love it. It is about as useful as a Ferrari in Manhattan but I’d still like one all the same.
BoxerFanatic says
Bonneville salt flats… otherwise don’t touch this thing.
Maybe a much smaller turbine with an air diffuser exhaust to cool and quiet it. (like barely bigger than an RC jet kind of size), that generates electricity, and an electric motor that drives the wheel and tire.
Heat, RPM response, and idle fuel consumption kill turbines for automotive style uses, including motorcycles.
A tiny turbine-driven generator, that would run at a steady state when needed for electric supply, (and stops combustion by cutting off fuel, and runs on electricity only, rather than idling at 35,000 rpms or something.) with a bypass compressor stage that blows bypass air into an exhaust diffuser to mix and cool and hopefully quiet the exhaust would be the only way to use a turbine in a car or motorcycle to true advantage. The only thing I have seen that resembles that is the Jag CX-75 concept car.
Ceolwulf says
Glad I’m not the only one thinking along those lines. Hopefully someone with the wherewithal makes it a production reality.
Emmet says
Check out the video on http://www.jaylenosgarage.com
He recounts a car pulling up behind him and watching its bumper melt in the rearview mirror due to the jet engine’s exhaust
Yeti B. says
Not practical? What does practical matter anyway? One could make a valid argument that ship already sailed long ago. When you decide to motivate yourself around on two wheels, virtually naked to the elements, you’ve pretty much thumbed your nose at “practical” transportation from the start.
For example, if I’m motoring about when it decides to rain, I get wet. There’s really not much of anything practical about the entire concept of motorcycles when you break it down, yet I own two of them.
My point? Since I’m already being impractical anyway… Might as well have turbine power.
Stan says
Agreed. If your worried about practicality you may be missing the point of this bike.
hoyt says
Motorcycles are not practical in cities? Parking?
The whole emerging electric market is gaining advantages for superior practicality in urban and suburban distances for electric scooters and motorcycles. Yeah, they are practical for much of the year in many places.
todd says
If your place of work (or other destination) is at the other end of a mile long, untrafficked road then, yes, it is totally practical. If, on the other hand, you happen to live in a place where there are twists and turns, traffic, animals, pedestrians, controlled (and uncontrolled) intersections, etc, – not so much. In the real world you would be able to get to and from your destination much faster on a 250 – impressive power output notwithstanding.
-todd
Nicolas says
I don’t believe this bike was designed as a daily urban commuter, so why compare it with a 250 ?!?
It’s probably also not as good as a 2-stroke 125 for off-roading/motocrossing, shame on the Y2K …
Seriously guys ?
todd says
the point is that it doesn’t make a very good motorcycle. Why would you want it? A Suez rocket makes more power than this, why then wouldn’t we want that more?
-todd
JP says
Created by Cajuns. They are not just about good food.
These are not the loudest engines I’ve dealt with (still attached to aircraft only) The little bitty turbines on an MU2 or it’s derivatives are the worst. Very high pitched.Smaller turbines are more painful. So y’all’s mini-turbine hybrids would need lots of sound dampening to be viable. It can be done, but you are looking at a lot of heat resistant (for the outlet) muffling and the intakes are just as bad noise wise.
SteveD says
Are you folks seriously talking about this thing from a practical standpoint? This is like asking if Sears should sell a nuclear powered screwdriver. Many truly high performance machines face some limitations from a street-use perspective.
B50 Jim says
Make it twice as long, build a ‘liner body and take it to Bonneville. See if a 2-wheeler can beat a 4-wheeler’s LSR speed. 400+, perhaps? With only one driven wheel it might not be possible, but time and again the “impossible” becomes a new record.
Or how ’bout taking a dozen or so to Daytona and running the Mother of All Bike Races? Keep it strictly on the banking and let ’em run. They’d need airliner tires, but what a show!
Mike1200 says
So, if a few starlings can down a full size airliner, what happens to this bike when it inhales a bumblebee at 50,000rpm?
Not between MY legs it won’t!!
B50 Jim says
Mike1200, you’ve obviously never ridden an old English Big Single beyond red line. You wouldn’t sweat a turbine spinning a mere 50,000 rpm swallowing an insect.
Mike1200 says
well, let me think…you’re right
old: not THAT old
English: yes
single: not unless 3 cylinders die
redline: so far been too scared to look 🙂
Cameron Nicol says
Honey, you know you said that if I found the perfect bike you’d buy it for me? It’s orange.
Byrd says
Considering the major “lag time” to throttle response, with that much power, I imagine that bike could just scare the living crap out you.
Truthscreamer says
Said it elsewhere, will say it a again: it just kills me that this machine is so special, so cool, such an engineering achievement…and so needlessly freakin’ UGLY! Why didn’t MTT finish the job and create a body that is up to the rest of the level of the machine? Does it really cost less to create an ugly set of bodywork than a thing of beauty and coolness? And on the original one (not talking about the custom RR graphics on this example) the only graphics are “Y2K†that look like something a junior high schooler bought on impulse off the shelf from the mailbox aisle at Home Depot and slapped on! So awful and amatuerish, so cheap looking on a $175,000 toy, for no reason- graphics aren’t expensive! Why not do it right? MTT: please FINISH this unique, awesome machine now that you’ve sorted out the recurring transmission failure issues, and hire a professional designer like Glynn Kerr to give it a stunning world class appearance that it deserves. If you’re really committed to the success of this bike…just do it.
Conrad says
Awesome.
I’ve gotta stop and look whenever I see the Y2K mentioned anywhere on the ‘web. If I could, heck yes I would have one. I’d probably just ride it through the city and the trendy cafe spots just for kicks. Then I’d make sure to take it to the drags at least a few times a year. I would just love to be riding around with that jet turbine sound.
Also I’ve gotta agree with the comments regarding practicality. Motorcycling is not practical, especially if we’re speaking in generalities. I ride because I just love it.
Scotduke says
If we’re talking loud, you want to stand behind one of those six cylinder Honda 250 race bikes from the 60s. Those things scream on throttle – I stood behind one a few years back when it was being ‘warmed up’ for a sprint at a historic race event here in the UK. The Y2K would have to be very loud indeed to make more noise.
I like the Y2K bike. It may not be practical, particularly pretty or easy to ride. I like the fact that something as insane as this exists in the modern world, where health and safety regulations abound.
Mechanicaldan says
Both my wife and I were fortunate enough to work at MTT. Ted the CEO is very cool. MTT builds turbine powered motorcycles, a pickup, a Mini Cooper, airboats, lots of other boats, firefighting and pumping equipment, plus oil field equipment. It’s an incredible experience to walk into the shop and see the expensive toy after expensive toy. Difficult to describe in person. It’s like a showing someone a photograph, versus being at the real experience while the photo was taken.
The MTT Turbine Superbike will always be an icon in the motorcycle world.
It’s truely something to experience in person. At the push of the button, the starter motor starts spinning the turbine and building speed. After 15 seconds or so, the ignitor starts in with a continuous clicking noise and then the fuel is spraying in and a WOMP as the combustion process starts. The turbine is fully lit and at speed after about 60 seconds, and then at this point it sounds like a jet engine. You have to shout at people at close range to be able to hear them above the noise of the running turbine.