Can you really get away with claiming a six-figure price for a motorbike? The 140,000 Euro (178,000 USD) Midual Type 1 appears to do just that. Luckily, it doesn’t do so through gold plating or some other vulgar and unnecessary means, instead the price is principally a factor of time and the two decades it took to perfect this beauty.
Indeed, so original and innovative is the thinking behind the Type 1 that the Frenchman behind Midual, Olivier Midy, has filed a few patents on it, including one for the engine’s architecture. Essentially, he’s taken a boxer twin, with all the excellent primary balance and low centre of gravity we have come to love with such units but rather than mount it as others have done before, he saw a solution that no one else did.
First, he placed the motor longitudinally. However, rather than being forced to lengthen the wheelbase to accommodate such an unit (which would only make the bike a handful to control and also lose much of the purity of that engine) Midy has tilted his boxer forwards at an angle of 25-degrees. This has enabled the rear cylinder to clear the swinging arm pivot but also, and more crucially, it has allowed him to keep the wheelbase nice and compact. The company claims the result “makes negotiating curves a delight”. We don’t doubt it. When you factor in that those 1036cc’s offer formidable torque at low engine speeds and a broad power spread that peaks at 106hp, you can easily see just what a sweet a ride this must be.
That’s not all. Given how inventive the Type 1’s engine is, it’s only fitting that it has been placed within an equally radical chassis. Cast in a French aerospace foundry and then hand-shaped after numerous intermediate operations, the bespoke single-piece lightweight aluminium-alloy monocoque frame acts as a chassis as well as a fuel tank. And this too has been patented.
Shown to the public for the first time at the last Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, it was rather fitting for the occasion that we learnt that each of the 35 units planned for production will be customisable to the very last detail. We were also informed that the purchase price includes a four-year contract for maintenance and warranty support that includes collecting the motorcycle from your home, taking it to the manufacturer’s workshops and bringing it back again. According to Midy, “In this way, full guarantee of careful, thorough after-sales maintenance can be assured.” That price is starting to look like a bargain, isn’t it!
WHAT Midual Type 1
FROM Angers, France
SPECS 1036cc, 106hp, 100Nm, 6 speed, 239kg (wet), 178,000 USD
WHY These limited edition bikes are high-tech works of art. Customised to your exacting aesthetic requirements, each is marked with its creation date, number and owner’s name. If that’s not an ultimate bike, then we don’t know what is.
