DRIVING THE ULTIMATE JOYRIDE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
It’s a bike! No. It’s a car! No. It’s…errr, what the hell is this thing?
Had a Martian landed in the middle of Orange County, he probably would have garnered less attention. Seriously, the US capital of Botox, Silicon, and nail jobs just south of LA had seen everything, but nothing like this.
Some would call it an obscene phallic symbol on wheels. Polaris calls it Slingshot.
Not for the faint-hearted
Saturday, 10:00am. I’m driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, towards San Diego. Stopping at a red light just outside Laguna Beach, a spanking new 5-series Bimmer pulls by my side. At the wheel of the large B.M.W. sedan sits a beauty that would easily turn the heads of any middle-aged men like me. “This is the coolest thing, I have ever seen!!! What is this?!”. Funny, looking at her, I was thinking the same. “It’s a giant Piranha fish on wheels!” I imagine myself yelling back at her. In reality, however, I only mumble back a few meaningless words. Her face is full of admiration.
Then the light turns Green. She disappears on me. I wish this darn thing had a slightly more potent engine than it’s 4-pot 2.4 Liter GM unit. Instead, my Black & Blue Slingshot have fins and gills that renders the issue of performance rather pointless.
Single wheel burnouts anyone?
Meet the Polaris Slingshot. The Minneapolis-based company calls it “a bike with one extra wheel”. I call it a car designed by a 14-year-old during a boring algebra class.
An Orange Lambo? Neh, dull! A Blood-red Ducati Panigale? Boring! This plastic covered arrow leaves them (and reality) far, far behind.
Turning heads is its main target in life, and it does the job of garnering attention quite spectacularly. Describing it is less trivial. Like any car, it has two wheels at the front, a hood (made in this case of plastic with lots of aggressive, fake vents), a steering wheel, two bucket seats, three pedals, and a stick shift. Like a motorcycle, it has no windscreen, no roof, no doors, only one giant wheel powering the whole thing at the back, and requires wearing a helmet to drive it.
Some, including its Minnesota-based manufacturer, call it an “Autocycle”. Meaning, it is as fun as a motorcycle and as practical and safe as a car. We’ll be checking that claim later on. For now, let’s agree it’s an eccentric trike with an addictive tendency for single wheel burnouts.
How I got to drive this thing?
Polaris asks $26,000 for a basic Slingshot. I got the keys to my fully-loaded edition for free, from the owner of The Brand Amp, our Costa Mesa-based PR company, that also happens to represent Indian Motorcycles – a subsidiary of Polaris. Lucky that.
I climb on board, careful not to step over the exposed steal-pipe chassis, and land inside the bucket seat to have a look around. Unlike its outwardly exterior, the interior of my Slingshot looks like a cut/paste job of one of Polaris’ many successful RZRs. Enter the simple-looking key into the switch, press the red “start” button, and the engine jolts into life. The sound is not the burbling of a large bore V8 muscle, nor the nervous rattle of a Japanese Motorcycle. It’s rather like a robust 4-cylinder power plant that had gone through a whole sound reengineering. Which is precisely what the folks at Polaris did – planting a 2.4 Liter 170hp engine from the late Pontiac Solstice at the front of my ride.
Shifting the stick into first (yes, this thing is manual), and rolling into the street, I nearly spin the trike on my first turn. With little weight on the single back wheel (The Slingshot weighs less than 800Kg, most of them at the front), and a torque-rich engine, even the massive 305mm rubber at the back can’t provide enough grip. Flooring the pedal means smoking your rear in all three gears (I wasn’t brave enough to commit single-wheel drifts in 4th and 5th). I can’t help thinking what was the idea of utilizing a large, heavy and cumbersome car engine with lot’s of low down power when they could have used a small and light motorcycle powerplant that revs to the stratosphere but doesn’t burn rubber any possible chance it gets.
And perhaps this is exactly the whole idea.
Perhaps it’s me that does not “get” the joke.
Time to find out.
Into the twisties
I steer my Slingshot into highway 5 and drive towards Ortega Canyon Road – a 35 Kilometers of twists and turns that cuts into the Santa Ana range. The ride on the big freeway is not what one would call enjoyable. The loud engine sound turns into an annoying, constant noise, the plastic body panels rattle rather violently at high speeds, and the light frame transmits every single road imperfection straight to your spine. Turning into the Canyon road comes as a sought-after relief. Polaris clearly built this thing for mountain roads, not for straight highways. This should be fun.
It is.
In its own unique, particular way…
The Slingshot is full of drama. But only drama. Like a one trick pony, it is an excitement factory. Some of it comes with the knowledge it can kill you rather abruptly. You see, two rear wheels are there for a reason. The reason is keeping you alive!
I did the road couple of times before stopping at a bikers’ burger joint (Hell’s Kitchen Motorsports Bar & Grill, highly recommended, BTW) to try and sum up the experience. The Slingshot was fun to drive but did not possess the qualities a true sport driver/rider desires. It thrills but does not communicate, it’s moderately fast, but never inspires confidence. It is not a tool you’d want to push to its limits. You just know that when that single wheel at the back goes, you go with it. No opposite lock would be fast enough.
When you strip the slingshot clean of its drag, you find a vehicle that is significantly slower and less fun to drive than both a sports bike or a sports car.
But if you have a desire to turn more heads and gather more attention than an exotic costing ten times as much, I cannot think of any better this side of the frickin’ galaxy!