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Wakan Motorcycles is Reborn as Avinton Motorcycles

Avinton Motorcycles is Wakan Reborn, a French S&S V-Twin sport bike

It’s been almost seven years since we first wrote about Wakan Motorcycles and the Wakan 1640, a French V-Twin sport bike, designed around an S&S 1640 and wrapped in a minimal frame, the idea was to emulate the AC Cobra, installing a big American powerplant in a small and light European chassis. I thought it looked great, as did many of you, though as a few years passed and the short run of prototypes remained the only units produced, it began to appear that another motorcycle brand would be stillborn. They were looking for investors with the aim of building them here in the USA, they even showed up at an S&S bike show to generate a bit of interest, but they left empty handed and Wakan seemed to disappear.

Well, they didn’t disappear, they’ve come back as Avinton Motorcycles, rebadged with a new logo, but pretty much the same bike we saw when the Wakan first appeared. Current specs show 120 horsepower and 120 foot pounds with a wet weight of 430 pounds. Primary drive is Kevlar belt, final drive is chain. The air intake above the false tank is still there, the fuel is carried below the seat. It still lo

Wakan Motorcycles has produced the Wakan 1640, a single seat, V-Twin powered sport bike built around the AC Cobra idea of dropping a big American powerplant into a sporty European frame.

Joel Domergue, the man behind Scorpa, a company known for some excellent trials motorcycles, and an expert trials rider himself, figured it was time to sell the company which left him with some cash in his pocket and ideas in his head. Actually, those ideas had been floating around for years but, busy with Scorpa, he didn’t have the time to do anything with them. Now, with free time and a bit of capital, he went to work.

The Wakan 1640 starts with a single spine oil carrying frame, a 54 inch wheelbase, with inverted Ceriani forks mounted at 22 degrees. Power comes from a 100 cubic inch S&S V-Twin producing 115hp and 115 foot pounds of torque and those horses are moving a motorcycle that weighs only 390 pounds with oil, no fuel. The engine sports a single Keihin flatslide carb that gets ram air through a blower type scoop situated above the airbox cover. The fuel tank is below the seat, molded to double as a sort of rear mudguard with the filler mounted on the tailsection. The engine has been dynamically balanced to reduce vibration plus the bar end weights help and the result is a much smoother bike than you might expect.