RR1000 Battletwin von 1987 bei ebay
Item Specifics - Motorcycles
1987 Buell : RR1000 Battletwin
Rare, pristine, #50 of 50 made, 229 miles,XR1000 engine
Year: 1987
Warranty: No
Miles: 229
Engine Size: 1000
Condition: Used
Title: Clear
Exterior: Orange
VIN Number: 1B9RR10G2H1133050
Type: Sport Bike
Model: RR1000 Battletwin
Vehicle Description
1987 Buell RR1000, Number 50 of 50 made, Pristine Condition
A Rare Piece of Harley Davidson and Buell History Show Quality
Would make a great addition to the showroom of any Harley/Buell dealer
This is an authentic 1987 Buell RR1000, the very last one made. It is in pristine original condition.
Background of the Buell RR1000
The Buell RR1000 was Erik Buell's first production bike, made in his garage in Wisconsin. A total of 52 of them were made: a prototype, a race bike campaigned by Don Tilley named "Lucifer's Hammer II", and 50 production bikes. Erik needed to make 50 production bikes to homologate the bike for the Battle of the Twins series. He started the production run in 1986 and completed it in the spring of 1988 when this bike rolled out of his garage.
RR1000 bodywork is based on the Harley Davidson XRTT bodywork that was extensively developed in the Cal-Tech wind tunnel in the late 60's. But Erik completed the bodywork, adding a large front fender and a tapered tail section to reattach the airflow, as well as an integrated gas tank. The RR1000 is the most aerodynamic production bike ever made, with a lower CdA than even the Suzuki Hayabusa.
All 52 of the Buell RR1000's used the famous XR1000 Harley Davidson engine. The XR1000 engine uses the XR dual-carb heads from the XR750 flat track race bike placed on essentially a 1000cc Sportster engine.
Erik Buell shut down Buell Motor Company in 1993, and in partnership with Harley Davidson formed a new company, "Buell Motorcycle Company". This is the company that's making Buell motorcycles today, and Erik's position is Chief Technical Officer. But parts for the old Buell Motor Company bikes are still available through a support company Erik set up called "EFB Design".
About This Bike
This bike sat on the floor at Howell's Harley Davidson in State College, PA, from when it was new until the summer of 1999. They finally decided to sell the bike, and it was purchased by a local car dealer. The owner of that car dealership kept it for about 6 months, rode it a little bit, and sold it to me. When I bought it, it had 222 actual miles on it. It's now showing 229 miles.
While sitting at the dealership in PA, apparently a heater duct was near the left side of the bike. The panel down by the kickstand got discolored. I had that panel only repainted. It looks perfect, you can't tell. I also had the entire bike color sanded and clearcoated. But other than that one small panel, the paint and decals and so forth are all original.
The bodywork is very thin in places and there may be some minor stress cracks in the paint and so forth. It's the nature of a thin fiberglass body.
Here's a picture of the right side of the engine, with the bodywork removed. It's all original. This chassis also incorporated a new-at-the-time engine mounting system. It allows the engine to vibrate on rubber isolators in one plane only, but provides solid resistance in the other direction, for stability while cornering. The chassis is small and light as well. The handling is superb.
Here's a shot of the left side of the engine. It's all original, including the Supertrapp exhaust. Notice the straight frame rails of the RR1000. This was for stiffness. Later Buell models would get curves added to facilitate serviceability, but the RR1000 was a no-compromise design. Note how you can't even remove the primary cover without raising the frame.
As all of these RR1000's are handmade bikes, no two are identical. In examining other original RR1000's, I've noticed many detail differences. Erik made his own front brakes for the bike. The forks are top shelf items, Marzocchi M1R's. The wheels are very expensive Dymag magnesium units, 16" diameter. All of this is original equipment. Shown is the original Pirelli tires. They're dismounted and stored in plastic bags now. The bike has Michelins on it at the moment.
The rear shock is a gas charged Works Performance unit. Again, this is original equipment.
Here's the dash. The bike uses the anti-dive system as found on some other Harleys of that era. Gauges are XR1000 units, as are the idiot lights. The rocker switch on the left is to switch from main to reserve. Since the bodywork is fully enclosed, electric solenoids are used instead of a petcock. The controls are standard issue Harley Davidson. The clip-ons are 1" diameter.
Just out of view on the lower left is the choke control lever, made from a bicycle shifter. All of this is original equipment of course. I have a fair bit of literature associated with the bike, that goes with it. Here's an example.
This is inside the cover of the owner's manual. Erik signed every manual, which I guess isn't a big deal when you make 50 bikes in 2 years. The manuals were done on Erik's dot-matrix printer.
EFB Design sent me the original build sheets for the bike. This is just the front page. There's a line for every part on the bike, and a check mark to make sure it got put on. As you can see, it took them a month to build this bike.
Racing History of this Bike
Shortly after I purchased this bike, I got involved with the Team Elves land speed race team. We decided to take the bike to the Bonneville Salt Flats and see what it could do. I removed the original bodywork and engine from the bike, installed a race prepared XR1000 engine, fitted a race prepared body to the bike, and in September of 2000, we went to the Bonneville Salt Flats and ran the bike at USFRA's "World of Speed" event.
The bike knocked off records as fast as we could turn it around. In a four day event, we ended up setting four new class records, and then re-broke two of our own records. There were several magazine mentions like this one.
We raced the bike again the following year, and re-broke two of our records. The fastest record we set was 180.823mph. The nitrous bottle ran empty on the pass above, that's why it had a quarter mile speed of 184 and a mile speed of 178.
After the 2001 event, I retired the bike. I carefully put the original engine back into it and the original body back on it. The bike was running fine at the time I reassembled it. I then put it on display at a local dealership for a few years. I haven't started it since before it went on display. I'm sure it needs a battery and may need some carb cleaning as well. But it's mechanically sound.
While we were racing the bike, the speedometer was not installed. Therefore the bike has maybe 50 more miles on it than the odometer shows. The odometer currently shows 229 miles. Read more about the race effort at the Team Elves web site.
Flaws
There are two flaws on this bike that I'm aware of. This federal compliance decal on the frame rail is damaged. This happened when I first got the bike. The bike was messy so I cleaned it up with my pressure washer. It did this damage before I could let go of the trigger. Oops. I asked EFB Design if they have another, but unfortunately, the answer was no. You could probably get one made up.
The kickstand on an RR1000 was an afterthought. The original mounting for it is very weak, and it bends upward, causing the bike to lean excessively. When I got the bike, I had to put a two by four under the stand to get it to sit upright properly. Anyway, I bent the mount back into place, and then reinforced it with some additional steel to keep it from happening again. So there's some non-original reinforcement of the kickstand on this bike. It's hard to see in the picture, but that's an additional piece of flat stock under the kickstand nut. The ding in the pipe by the discs is from the stand hitting it when it folds up, that's original ;) Keep in mind these are handmade, low volume bikes, not mass produced. They're not perfect.