The Dodge Tomahawk always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s not the idea of a motorcycle wrapped around an enormous car engine that bothered me, but the fact that it has four wheels. Allen Millyard agreed with that assessment and built a proper two-wheeled, Viper-powered motorcycle of his own. And now, it can be yours, as it’s going up for auction at the end of July.
I wouldn’t trust just anyone with a one-off custom bike build, especially one built around a Viper engine. At 700 pounds, the engine alone weighs more than many motorcycles, and the entire bike weighs closer to 1,300, according to Silodrome, but this is Allen Millyard we’re talking about. I’ve inspected his work up close at the Barber Museum, and I couldn’t even find the seams where he grafted a second cylinder head onto a Kawasaki inline-4 to turn it into a V8. I’d trust his meticulous attention to detail far more than anyone else building motorcycles in a shed.Â
No such work was necessary on the Viper engine, which is already big enough and has an appropriate number of cylinders, even for Millyard. The rest of the motorcycle is literally bolted onto the engine itself, with subframes supporting the custom-made front fork as well as the back of the bike, including a beefy single-sided swingarm.
A one-speed wonder
What I find most fascinating about this bike is that it has only one gear. There is a clutch, which can be operated by hand or foot levers, but no transmission in the traditional sense. The overall gear ratio can be adjusted only by substituting different rear sprockets. One shot in this video shows the bike’s gauge cluster displaying a speed of 41 mph while the engine turns just 1,000 RPM. The 8.0-liter V10 has enough torque to idle across town with a bit of clutch slipping, as well as enough top-end speed to set multiple land speed records, the most recent being a 183.5 mph two-up run in 2023. Ridden solo, it can break 200.
If you want to give it a try for yourself, now’s your chance. This bike goes up for auction on July 22 at the H&H Classics motorcycle auction at the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull, UK. Millyard finished it in 2009, and has put over 9,000 miles on it since. When asked why he’s selling it now, Millyard told MCN, “I don’t think I’ve got anything to prove with it anymore. To be honest with you, it takes up a lot of space in the house, and there’s a responsibility in keeping it maintained.” That’s no small task, as this video shows, but it’s a small price to pay for a genuine two-wheeled motorcycle with a Viper V10 engine.
