Motorcycle specifications WakanROADSTER 1640 2009 Hot spicy French roadster

The French touch has always been seductive, in couture, art, gastronomy, more recently in techno, and now motorcycles must be included in this panoply. Forget the BFG attempt, let's hope for the Voxan adventure, and welcome the WAKAN.

Yes, you already know it. This machine has been appearing at trade shows for some time now. The enthusiasm generated has enabled it to pass the stage of industrialization, and it's in 2009 that the first models arrive. Oh, nothing to do with mass production. The Roadster (as the bike is called) is closer to a made-to-order sculpture than to ready-to-wear. Behind this name, which sounds like a Sioux tribe, is Joël Domergue. The man is no novice in the field: after launching Scorpa (another French brand, renowned in the trials field), he set about creating Wakan in 1999. We had to wait until 2005 to see the first prototype of the Roadster.

Well worth the wait! Because the realization is admirable. The fruit of a love affair between American mechanics, a hint of English inspiration, a pinch of Italian brains and a body of Hérault slenderness, this machine reconciles the old and the new continents. The result is this superb café-racer, as sporty as it is elegant.
The basic idea, a roadster built on a big custom V-twin, reminds you of a well-known production machine... Yes, the MT-01, and before it the Bulldog, from Yamaha. Wakan's approach goes further, much further. Look at the style, the power of the design, the velocity that emanates from this machine, whose enormous twin-cylinder engine seems to occupy the entire visual field. A gazelle with a monstrous heart. It seems to hold the bike all together. And if its streamlined profile (air cooling avoids all the piping and radiator of a liquid system) reminds you of Milwaukee production, don't be put off by the fact that it's an S&S engine. The term "cafe-racer" takes on its full meaning. Wakan's roadster doesn't pretend to be hot: it is. The big American twin has perfectly square dimensions: 101.6 mm in both stroke and bore. Its displacement is 100 cubic inches, or 1,640 cm3. But like Buell and its Harley engines, Wakan and S&S offer a cocktail that smells of gunpowder. The figures speak for themselves: 115 hp at 6,250 rpm, torque in excess of 15 mkg, and a top speed of 248 km/h. Boy, does it pack a punch!