Click on the image for more shots of the GG Quadster
Take a look at the GG Quadster, a machine which is designed with four wheels but powered by a motorcycle engine. The 1200cc liquid-cooled inline four cylinder design comes from BMW's range of K-bikes. This particular machine features 167 horsepower, which is enough to propel the lightweight vehicle to sixty miles per hour in no time at all. While these are very impressive acceleration statistics, for the purpose of this post, we don't care about that. We're more interested in the actual design and layout of the vehicle. Because this machine has four wheels, it cannot be classified as a motorcycle in the United States. That would make a machine such as this next to impossible to register as a road-legal vehicle. This fact raises an interesting conundrum: are vehicles like the GG Quadster really less safe than a motorcycle? If not, what are the rational reasons that it cannot be registered as such?
The engine powering the GG Quadster is quite modern, featuring electronic fuel injection, catalytic converters and all the electronic gadgetry necessary to pass emissions tests. While this particular beast was not really designed with efficiency in mind, it will likely return fuel mileage which is much better than most cars on the road. Many new vehicle designs, like that of the Aptera, are using three wheels to get around safety requirements. We are not suggesting for a minute that safety is not of utmost importance, because it is. But with all the motorcycles, including those with sidecars, circling our roads, what makes a vehicle such as this any less worthy of the same?
Take a look at the GG Quadster, a machine which is designed with four wheels but powered by a motorcycle engine. The 1200cc liquid-cooled inline four cylinder design comes from BMW's range of K-bikes. This particular machine features 167 horsepower, which is enough to propel the lightweight vehicle to sixty miles per hour in no time at all. While these are very impressive acceleration statistics, for the purpose of this post, we don't care about that. We're more interested in the actual design and layout of the vehicle. Because this machine has four wheels, it cannot be classified as a motorcycle in the United States. That would make a machine such as this next to impossible to register as a road-legal vehicle. This fact raises an interesting conundrum: are vehicles like the GG Quadster really less safe than a motorcycle? If not, what are the rational reasons that it cannot be registered as such?
The engine powering the GG Quadster is quite modern, featuring electronic fuel injection, catalytic converters and all the electronic gadgetry necessary to pass emissions tests. While this particular beast was not really designed with efficiency in mind, it will likely return fuel mileage which is much better than most cars on the road. Many new vehicle designs, like that of the Aptera, are using three wheels to get around safety requirements. We are not suggesting for a minute that safety is not of utmost importance, because it is. But with all the motorcycles, including those with sidecars, circling our roads, what makes a vehicle such as this any less worthy of the same?
[Source: Faster and Faster]
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