Currently rolling across the Bring A Trailer auction block is a futuristic motorcycle that you don’t really see often, if you’ve seen one at all. This 2008 Vyrus 984 C3 2V Razzetto looks like it was ripped straight out of a video game and it can be yours.
Vyrus is known for making expensive bespoke motorcycles that are functional works of art. The bikes look like something that you’d see in a sci-fi movie or concept drawings that would never reach production. This 2008 Vyrus 984 C3 2V Razzetto is so strange that you can’t possibly stare at it long enough to appreciate all of its details.
The first thing you’ll notice is that it doesn’t work like most motorcycles. Gone is any sort of fork, making the handlebar look disconnected from the front wheel. Hub-centre steering is a quirk of Vyrus bikes, and the way it works is pretty neat.
The front wheel is mounted to a swingarm with a shock and an internal pivot point. Steering is achieved using those bright red linkages that turn the wheel on that pivot point. Here’s a visual explanation for how that works:
Hub-centre steering has been used on motorcycles going back over a century, but take a pillion seat to the popularity of more traditional forks. As noted by the Odd Bike motorcycle blog, Vyrus’ founder, Ascanio Rodorigo, worked for Bimota as a race mechanic between the 1970s and 1985.
Rodorigo left Bimota to start his own company and partnered with Bimota on the hub-centre-steered Tesi. Vyrus would develop the steering concept even further in its own motorcycles.
But Vyrus isn’t just about weird steering. Each bike built by Vyrus is unique as buyers are offered extreme levels of customisation. You can get everything from carbon fibre everywhere to bespoke engine mapping. This Vyrus 984 C3 2V is no different, check out the ad from Bring A Trailer:
Additional features include a Double Omega billet aluminium frame, carbon-fibre bodywork, an adjustable caster angle, Marvic magnesium wheels, Brembo brakes, FG Gubellini suspension components, and a Zard exhaust system.
That exhaust system is art all on its own and features carbon fibre mufflers. You could easily lose hours of time looking at every little detail of this thing.
Should you stop staring at the motorcycle long enough to ride it, power is provided by a Ducati dual spark L-twin bored out to 1,079cc and making 100 HP. That moves the 145 kg machine using a six-speed transmission.
Capping it off is the bike’s rather fitting name, Razzetto, which translates “little rocket.” The seller got it in 2020 from her brother’s estate and serviced it then. It’s said to have accumulated only 3,058 km since new
Of course there’s a huge catch and it’s the price. Depending on who you ask, a fully customised one can take you into the six figures. This one sold for $62,500 (US$45,000) on Bring A Trailer. Hopefully, the person who bought this actually takes it on the road wearing gear that matches its style.