Confederate Hellcat C3 X132 – The Koenigsegg of bikes

Steve Jobs was a gaming guy starting a computer company. Maybe a stretch, but what about a lawyer launching an avant-garde motorcycle company?
Confederate Motors Inc. is a 19 year old company, formed by Matthew Chambers, a man who first ran his father’s pool hall at the age of 17, to have enough money for law college, to running for Louisiana State Representative in 1982, to winning his largest awarded case involving police brutality in 1990.
That’s when he then decided to move to his “labour of love”, where he sold his private law practice to create “enlightened design through true American inspiration”.
But what about their bikes? The biggest unofficial accolade is custom bike designers right from Paul Teutel Jr. to Akshay Varde, swearing that the Hellcat is the best production motorbike ever made.
I guess the first thing is to look at motorbikes in India first. The Royal Enfield Bullet, is one of the strongest bikes around today. Contrast this with the Yamaha R15, which has so much fiber on it, you wonder if there is any bike left.
The new Pulsar from the initial naked bike look, has sadly too, taken up a lot of the fibre right from the rear end to the batwing fairing in front.
Cut to the X132 Hellcat. You don’t see any fibre here at all and not much of a seat either. This is a bike which is quite literally, all engine and nothing else.
For all this power, the weight is unbelievably low at 215 kilogrammes.
Confederate’s philosophy from the beginning has been to create an amalgamation of engine and bike, which first culminated in the F131 Hellcat, a motorbike which impresses with it’s crazy three high intensity zenon bulbs in front, instead of the usual big headlamp. After that, came the incredible hooded Wraith with LED lamps which are truly mesmerizing to look at. Each motorbike looks like something grown, something from the stars.
But, how do they compare to that Milwaukee manufacturer of motorcycles with their own cult following, who has also launched their range in India. Well, with the C3 X132 Hellcat which is around double the price of a typical Night Rod special and one-fourth the price of its predecessors, the aim is to target around 10% of the top Harley Davidson customers across the world.
Horsepower? Well, the cheeky guys at Confederate, have only one word to say about that, with over 145 foot pounds of torque, claimed to be the highest torque-to-weight ratio for any other production bike in the world, that word would “Sufficient”!
The engraving on the side of the tank seem almost alien, making you wonder if this motorbike is truly terran.
The bike, claimed to be the toughest most long lasting motorcycle which could ever be created, bears great testimony to the company itself, which, despite losing its factory to Hurricane Katrina and moving to Alabama, rebuilt itself from the ashes and still continued to meet schedules for their other motorbikes such as the Wraith and the Fighter.
If only these pages, could do justice, to what a powerful force of nature this motorbike is. Every inch is so well thought out, it will make you want to rethink your own vehicle, make you wonder why you need all that extra weight.
While the F131 truly look like a beast of the underworld, with a lot of weaving and waning of the intakes and exhaust, the C3 X132 looks like a beast of another galaxy, with it’s straight lines, engraved tank, horizontal seat, and an overall worship of everything geometric.
While the F131 was a woman powerful, the C3 X132, is a woman ethereal, with the ability to do the unthinkable, and not bat an eyelid while doing it.
Before you pack your bags for America, hang on a minute. You could actually order their motorbikes directly from their online store along with a range of goodies including the X132 Copperhead motor for twenty one large ones.
Considering that India is already seeing the likes of Maserati and Koenigsegg, look forward to the Hellcat unleashing its hellish roar here soon.

Photo courtesy: Confederate Motorcycles under a Creative Commons License.