revisit the aircraft-shaped racing motorcycle by don vesco

aircraft-shaped racing motorcycles by don vesco

Looking back, American racer and engineer Don Vesco created two high-powered aircraft-shaped racing motorcycles: the Silver Bird and its upgraded sibling, the Lightning Bolt. First, the Silver Bird, which the engineer built with a clear goal: to break the 300 miles per hour speed barrier. In the 1970s, no motorcycle had ever reached this speed, and Don Vesco made it his ambition to beat it. The design of the Silver Bird was unusual for normal motorcycles because it was long, low, and fully covered in a smooth metal body, a shape called a streamliner.

It resembles an aircraft without wings, and the design helped air flow easily over the bike, reducing drag and allowing higher speed. The rider sat inside the body, almost like in a small plane, and they would lie low inside, almost horizontal, like a pilot rather than a motorcyclist. The front section is rounded and blunt, similar to the nose of an early jet aircraft, and there are no headlights or handlebars visible. The wheels are almost fully covered, tucked inside the bodywork. On top of these designs, Don Vesco added the racing engines from Yamaha to reach his goal, using two TZ750 engines, which were famous in road racing.

all images courtesy of Mecum Auctions

Upgrading silver bird with kawasaki engines and turbochargers

Instead of using one engine, Don Vesco placed two in a line, one behind the other, within the aircraft-shaped racing motorcycle. Both engines had to work together perfectly because if one engine pushed harder than the other, the Silver Bird could break or crash. Chains and gears were used to connect the two engines, and the engineer carefully adjusted the throttle so both engines ran at the same time and speed, resulting in a total power that was high for a motorcycle in the 1970s. On September 15, 1975, Don Vesco rode the Silver Bird at Bonneville Salt Flats in the US, which is famous for speed records, and reached an average speed of 303 miles per hour.

This was the first time in history that a motorcycle, soon to be in a Mecum auction, officially passed 300 mph, and one could think Don Vesco would stop there, but three years later, he rebuilt the Silver Bird and gave it a new version called the Lightning Bolt. This time, the paint switched from orange and yellow to black, and the engineer removed the Yamaha engines and replaced them with two Kawasaki 1000cc engines, which were four-stroke engines that were larger and stronger. Still an aircraft-shaped racing motorcycle, the Lightning Bolt handled much more power because Don Vesco added turbochargers to both engines. These pushed more air into the engines, creating much higher power, so overall, the engines produced around 600 horsepower, more than double the earlier version.

front view of the Silver Bird motorcycle

Lightning Bolt reached top speed of over 333 mph

Because of the huge force, the engineer changed the drive system, and instead of chains, he used strong Gilmer belts, which were better at handling power and staying stable at high speed. In August 1978, Don Vesco returned to Bonneville with his upgraded aircraft-shaped racing motorcycle. He fired it up and sped away with it, and soon, the Lightning Bolt reached a top speed of over 333 mph in one run, beating the two-way average record of 318 mph and creating a new on. For 12 years, the engineer held this world record through his aircraft-shaped racing motorcycle, and in 2026, his Silver Bird Lightning Bolt machines return, appearing at the Mecum’s Glendale 2026 auction in Arizona between March 17th and 21st, allowing viewers to see the historical machines up close temporarily.

rear view of the custom machine