The Whitelock Tinker Toy, a unique motorbike that set a Guinness book record for having the largest engine cylinder count in a practical vehicle, will cross the auction block in the UK on April 21, 2024 expected to sell for £40,000–60,000 ($50,500–75,700).
Simon Whitelock, a bike aficionado from Great Britain, has made a name for himself designing bikes with unconventional and sometimes downright bizarre engines. His first project was a three-cylinder Kawasaki that received a fourth cylinder. Later on, he experimented with seven- and nine-cylinder configurations. In 2003, he reached the zenith of his craft building a bike with a 48-cylinder powertrain.
To accomplish it, he sourced 16 three-cylinder engines and assembled them in 6 units 8 cylinders in each. The total displacement amounts to 4.2 liters, and a 125cc engine is used as a starter.
Once he was done with the engine, Whitelock assembled a frame around it and finalized the construction. The fuel tank visible above it is fake, though: it’s just an ignition system lid. He also sourced a generator from a car and borrowed the front end – the suspension fork and the brakes – from a Honda GoldWing, one of the world’s heaviest mass-produced bikes.
The resulting machine starts up and is drivable, but the seller admits it can be a pain to control due to the massive powertrain arrangement. Its actual power and torque have apparently never been measured. Perhaps the most impressive thing is that it is actually street-legal in the UK, so whoever buys it will have the option of driving it every day.