NO NEW MOTORCYCLE MARQUE HAS appeared on the world stage with as much panache, or so unexpectedly, as Australia's Hunwick Hallam. It arrived on the scene after three years of top-secret development, dressed to kill, funded by Australia's largest bike retailer, Rod Hunwick, and engineered by cutting-edge Superbike tuner Paul Hallam.

Produced outside of Sydney, in Parramatta, the radical, shark-nosed, 998cc Hunwick Hallam XIR debuted in late March at the opening round of the 1997 World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island, where former Aussie Superbike champ Malcolm Campbell made a handful of high-profile demo laps. The bike had only been completed the day before, and it moved under its own power for the first time in front of 30,000 spectators and network TV cameras. That takes guts-and a confidence in your product-that can only be respected.

So, can something that looks this good produce performance to match? Well, after a solid day's testing at Sydney's Eastern Creek GP circuit on prototype X1R racers, I have to admit that I'm convinced. Two bikes were brought to Eastern Creek: the original Phase One version demonstrated earlier at Phillip Island, joined by a Phase Three update with titanium rods, valves, springs, etc. Hallam plans to incorporate pneumatic valve operation on the Phase Five version (which will be featured on the street X1R, for Superbike homologation purposes). I started out on the baseline "steel-engine" version.

First shock was the riding position. The way-out styling and droop-snoot nose give you the impression of a very front-heavy motorcycle. It's an optical illusion; you sit in a neutral stance with a balanced riding position. The width of the carbon-fiber snout provides near-ideal aerodynamic protection for the rider's body, as well as good airflow to the engine, airbox and forward-mounted radiator nested in the shark nose. Crank up the engine, and get ready for another surprise: It's not only surprisingly quiet, but it doesn't sound like a Ducati Superbike at all, in spite of the identical 90-degree cylinder angle. The Aussie V-Twin has a higher-pitched exhaust note that sounds taut and revvy, rather than butch and torquey-even with a longer, 67.5mm stroke than the Ducati or other current V-Twin Superbikes.

You can't fail to notice the torque. The XIR pulled like a turbocharged tractor out of Eastern Creek's tight first hairpin. It'll launch from its high 2000-rpm idle hardly using the clutch, and from 4000 rpm up pulls hard, with a kick in the powerband around 7000 rpm. Just over 10,000 rpm, the steel XIR starts to run out of breath, though according to Hallam, it has run safely to 12,000 rpm on the dyno, delivering an almost unbelievable 176 peak horsepower at the rear wheel. There wasn't any trace of that kind of engine speed, or performance, in the Phase One bike at Eastern Creek. In five-speed, steel-engine guise, the X1R feels to have a similar level of performance to a street Ducati 955SP-impressive, but not earth-shattering in Superbike terms.

After a couple of sessions totaling 20 laps or so on the Phase One bike, they gave me the keys to the Phase Three version. Whereas the steel engine is slower and more punchy in its pickup, the Phase Three titanium powerplant ("tit-motor" in Aussie-speak), fitted with the six-speed gearbox that will be standard on the XIR road bike, has an appetite for revs and throttle response that is dramatically enhanced.

You'd swear from riding the two bikes back-to-back that they had different cam profiles and fuel-injection mapping, but Hal|am insists this isn't so. "The two engines are essentially identical apart from the gearbox, even down to the same 11.8:1 compression ratio and choice of ignition map. It's a

Hunwick Hallam goes after Ducati dramatic confirmation of how much power can be unlocked by reducing the inertia of the bits that go up and down inside the engine," he says.

I'd never had a direct comparis between the same engine with titanium and steel internals, but my experience with the X1R made me a believer. It's the snap from the engine that's most noticeable, the way the engine speed picks up so much faster from down low. Yet this enhanced engine response hasn't been obtained at the cost of the excellent midrange torque, which is as strong as before.

The potent engine forms part of an innovative chassis design. A WP upside-down fork is hung from a cast-alloy backbone, with the engine forming an integral part of the chassis, and the conventional aluminum swingarm pivoting in the crankcases, Ducati-style. The rear shock is located off to the side and pretty far forward, increasing front-weight bias and leaving space for the exhausts to exit cleanly under the seat. The shock is operated by an alloy rod with a rising rate linkage at one end.

The bike refused to shake its he; over bumps or ripples, even when cranked over, and was very stable under power. Though I can't say I rode the X1R at racing speeds, I certainly pushed it plenty hard enough to be impressed-astonished, even-with the handling package. Getting the XIR's handling so well straight out of the box is a genuine achievement, and augurs well for the development of the street version. In titanium form, I'd say the X1R is roughly equivalent to a '96 Ducati 955 Corsa, the base bike Carl Fogarty used to win the World Superbike title in '95.

There's no getting away from it: Hunwick Hallam has delivered the goods. We could be witnessing the emergence of a new V-Twin perforformance benchmark. -Alan Cathcart

Source Cycle World 1997