I love a good death machine. Something that has no business being made, let alone being allowed on public roads. Something that, at its core, is designed to kill me. Why, because I'm a broken man. Isn't that clear? I mean, I feel like I've made that pretty clear.
Yet, even I sometimes have to stand back, take some type of certain-death-machine in, and wonder aloud, "Is this taking things too far?" Even I have to admit that someone may have been too preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
That definitely seems to be the case here with this "custom" do-it-yourself trike kit where you take one of Zero's electric motorcycles and strap it to the back of a cage, plop yourself ahead of it, and call it a day. Yeah, that seems totally safe and fine...
What you see here is from the small California-based company Volojet and is essentially an at-home kit called the Tomcat. No, not the plane that made Tom Cruise famous, but rather a set of wheels attached to a cage with a seat in the middle. The Tomcat is designed as a DIY affair where you take the back three-quarters of a Zero motorcycle, in this case one of the brand's S-line bikes, and attach it to the Volojet cage.
A set of controls mates to the bike which allows the driver to control the bike's output, essentially creating a DIY Campagna T-Rex, if y'all remember those Canadian trikes that were everywhere in the mid-aughts.
According to the company's website, "The Tomcat is bolt-on kit that turns any Zero S-line motorcycle into a three wheeled motorcycle with comfortable recumbent seating and track-worthy handling. It's a class leader, outperforming the competition in a guilt-free earth friendly way and made using low environmental impact practices." And because it's both based on a street-legal motorcycle, and comes with headlights and turn signals, it's apparently still street-legal with the company stating, "Virtually zero maintenance or upkeep and capable of up to 176 miles of city range makes the Tomcat a great daily driver."
I don't know about you, but this is definitely the type of thing I want to pop down to the shops with when everyone's driving F-250s or 9,000-pound Hummer EVs.
But, Jonathon, how much does it cost!? Well, fine sirs and madams, $21,000. No, I did not add an extra zero. The Tomcat will cost you the price of a small car or exactly three Royal Enfield Himalayan 450s, with some change left over. Also, it doesn't come with the donor Zero motorcycle. So, if you want the Tomcat powered by something, you're looking at $30,000+. Woof.
Still, it'd be a funny way to enter the Pearly Gates.
