Billet link plates and embedded tachometer. Curved handlebars add to the circular design concept. (Click image to enlarge)

The rest of Nesbitt’s spectral vision is pure modernism: The scoopy bodywork and the single-sided swingarm are both cues from the Italian master, Massimo Tamburini, and his Ducati 916 or MV Agusta F4, even from the late, great John Britten and his V1000 racer, a bike of outstanding beauty and performance.

So, does the sum of these parts add up to something? It is too early to say. The two most striking features of the bike are the tubular spine and the front fork. The spine works functionally and aesthetically. As for the front fork, let’s look at it.

To be fair, the motorcycle fork has always been a problem for designers and engineers from Tokyo to Torrance. Front forks do not function very well. They go up and down just when you do not want them to (cranked hard over on a bumpy road is not when you want to have plunging, rebounding forks), they flex, they twist and shout. Center hub steering was an early attempt to solve the riddle, used on the Ner-a-Car in the 1920s and more recently on various Bimotas. But such models are heavy, expensive, and difficult to make. BMW developed its own center-hub hybrid, the telelever, which works very well. All others have adapted the simple fork familiar from bicycles for 150 years.

4-speed. Kick start only. V-Twin, Magneto ignition and Superlight rotational mass. XR base top end for better breathing at high rpm. (Click image to enlarge)

Nesbitt’s approach to the problem was ambitious. He wanted a very light, very small, very low bike, and the traditional telescopic front fork was, in his view, too big, too heavy, and too basic. The solution was the girder fork, a design that would not look out of place on a motorcycle 75 years old. It is a bold move. Light and incredibly strong, it nevertheless looks odd to our modern eyes, trained on generations of Cerianis and Brembos. Visually, it weights the bike to the front, which traditionally is not how we like our bikes to look. But adventurers of all stripes have challenged us to look again, to consider anew, to find beauty where we might not have found it before. Nesbitt certainly challenges us with his Wraith. When the bike eventually hits American roads, one thing is certain, it will turn heads and muscle its way to the front of the custom motorcycle pack, just as the bobbers and choppers did 50 years ago.

Confederate is based in New Orleans, center of the voodoo universe, and you have to hand it to Chambers and Nesbitt for having a sense of humor to match their sense of design adventure. Thankfully, they also have no sense of decorum. This Wraith, a Gothic specter of death freshly emerged from the swamps of Louisiana, deserves no such restraints.

Confederate Motor Company
504.561.9122
www.confederate.com