The Bienville Legacy looks like somebody took apart a very expensive Swiss chronograph, magnified the internals and carefully put them together to form a very exotic motorcycle. The Legacy is the handiwork of American Design and Master-Craft (ADMCi), founded by Jim Jacoby and Scott Miller, and will make its world debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Designed by J. T. Nesbitt of Confederate fame, the Legacy looks brutally industrial, speckled with vintage styling cues. But that’s not the end of it – it’s a technological tour de force as well. Cradled amidst those steampunk themed appointments and carbon composite elements is a fuel-injected, water-cooled 1645cc Motus V4, which develops around 300 horsepower, albeit with a Rotrex centrifugal supercharger kit and a little bit of tuning.
The chromoly trellis frame is designed around a giant composite polymer leaf spring, which joins both the rear swingarm and the front girder forks to the frame. This single giant spring suspends both ends of the bike, with each end sporting its own, mountain bike derived damping units which provide progressively harder damping as it compresses, making it virtually impossible to bottom out.
The girder front-end and rear swingarm feature nearly-identical carbon composite blades with built in adjusters which allow for a change of trail at the front, and serve as chain adjusters at the rear, and are adjustable via a small worm gear. The Legacy’s leather seat is supported by a structure consisting of six titanium blades, while patches of leather on either side that could be potential heat shields can be seen giving company to the upswept exhaust cans.
Just three units of the Legacy have been built, and as a part of the ADMCi commission, the Bienville aims to be one of the three most beautiful and powerful prototype motorcycles the world has seen in decades. The bikes will be available to serious collectors for around $250,000, or approximately INR 1.6 Crore apiece.
