Motorcycle specifications Tarso Marques ConceptDumont 2018 Conception suborbital

If there's one field in which man has no limits, it's creation. Technology, art, literature, mechanics, physics... He's always going the extra mile. When it comes to motorcycles, the custom world is where he expresses himself most; almost anything goes. One of T.M.C's (Tarso Marques Concept) creations is a magnificent illustration of this propensity for delightful design alienation. The Brazilian brand breaks the barriers of audacity with this Dumont: huge hubless wheels, an airplane engine and an eye-popping design.

You don't even have to wonder what it's for, what it can do, how it handles or how comfortable it is. The Dumont just shows off, and that's enough to calm as well as amaze everyone.
With its huge 36-inch orbital wheels, the bike looks like something out of a digital movie, like Tron Legacy, Ready Player One... or a fondness for Akira. You'll probably never come across rims like these, except at the big customization shows on the other side of the Atlantic. Spectacular both visually and technically, the orbital wheels aren't exactly hubless, although the void that fills them gives the impression that they are. In reality, the wheel is supported by a huge hub, a kind of fixed crown with a bearing around which the mobile part, in which the tire is planted, rotates. This invention was the brainchild of Italian designer Franco Sbarro - for archivists, see Moto-Journal no. 884 for more details.

So that was essentially the complicated part. The hard part is that these wheels are so specific to the Dumont that T.M.C. had to manufacture everything, right down to the tires. Everything is so well integrated that all you see is a forked swingarm holding the front wheel. Suspension is regulated electronically, by a button or remote control. All anchored to a chrome-molybdenum aluminum frame.

It goes without saying that such a machine could not be powered by a conventional engine. A Harley Showelhead twin or an S&S big-block is for tuners... For Marques, it's all about the exceptional. He and his team went hunting in a Paraná air club and found an airplane engine from the 60s. They fell in love with it, and the block was ready to power the Dumont. The Rolls-Royce engine is a Continental with 6 flat Boxer cylinders, air-cooled and developing 300 hp. According to photographer Michael Lichter, this flat-six cubes 506 cubic inches, slightly less than the O-520 engine, which appears to be the original mill. When converted, this gives a displacement of no less than 8.3 liters. Demonic strength and devastating looks... just like the bike.

Tarso Marques has a long-standing love of mechanics. Starting out in karting at the age of 12, he went on to become Brazilian Formula 3 champion and then enjoyed a short career in Formula 1. His CV was marred by doping scandals, but it is particularly renowned and valued in the custom world. His motorcycle, car, boat, helicopter and airplane preparations are particularly renowned. Tarso presented his Dumont at Daytona Bike Week 2018, the cult venue for custom culture; and won his 6th World Customization Champion title there. That gives you an idea of the man's stature.
And why Dumont? A strange name for such an unusual machine. It's all in the history. Tarso wanted to pay tribute to the Brazilian Alberto Santos Dumont, father of his country's national air force.
In fact, this bike is almost a patriotic ode to his entire nation: everything, from design to manufacture, was created in Brazil, with no foreign suppliers.

Although it has handlebars and footpegs, the T.M.C Dumont has no vocation for road use. Not homologated and certainly not homologable, it is a highly accomplished exercise in style, surprising, functional (it really rides) and purely demonstrative.

- Tarso Marques Concept website ->

M.B - Photos T.M.C (Tarso Marques Concept)