The front fork is a refugee from a junkyard Honda. Note the Latus custom-built injector hat on top of the 4-71 supercharger.

The fuel/air mixture is delivered to the combustion chambers through a GMC 4-71 blower using a Latus-designed injector hat. An 11- inch Crower glide clutch is in place to handle the horsepower. It contains a single clutch-disc pack instead of the three-disc pack usually found in a can this size. Latus figures that will be enough but if more are required the can will take them.

Latus's chassis was built using scrap aluminum that he found in salvage yards. It is a unique, three-piece modular chassis design for ease of maintenance. The engine is attached to one section and can be fired, warmed and worked on without the other two modules attached. The front forks, also salvaged off of a Japanese bike, and rear suspension bolt to the chassis module that holds the engine.

With everything bolted together the nitro bike is a huge machine. Your reporter actually got into the seat and discovered that whoever drives this scooter has the cylinder head directly in his chest while his chin rests approximately on the injector hat and his butt is over the clutch can. It is not a machine for the weak of heart.

Latus said that the bike's Hemi has actually been fired up a couple of times and the bike is, for all intents and purposes, ready for action. There are rumors of a garage fire resulting from early tests but that incident only lends to the mystique of the beast. The important thing is that it runs -- and runs on nitro. According to Latus there is no shortage of brave souls volunteering to drive this most unique of motorcycles. Latus figures that it would run about 250-mph in the quarter...whew! When this event happens (and DRO is sure that it eventually will) we will be there and bring our readers a full report. Whatever the price of the ticket is, we will gladly pay to see this piece of engineering excellence and insanity make a lap.

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