Vicious Cycle

By The Editors
September 23, 2013 9:00 am

When you hire people who are smarter than you, the old saying goes, you prove you’re smarter than they are.

To build the Stars and Stripes Racer, the hair-whippingly fast chopper pictured above, Local Motors hired the entire Internet.

You may know Local: they’re the crowd-sourced engine for custom vehicle builds, the online forum that’s responsible for creating that dune-jumping beast they call The Rally Fighter.

The Racer is Local’s first motorcycle design, and it’s a beaut: a classic Harley chassis with a design that recalls the Brabham BT44 Formula One racing car of the ’70s.

Racer

It’s a minimalist but polished machine. Glossy white with black accents. No over-the-top, Ed Hardy-evoking graphics.

And as the winning designer says, “I wanted to create something simple, but iconic, with a strong racing personality.”

Smart guy.

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