Super-Heros ride electric motorcycles, and so can you.
This summer, I was able to attend the official release of the Harley “Project LIVEWIRE” electric motorcycle at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With the crowd cleared from the street, the electric motorcycle ZOOMED up to the museum FAST with a distinct electric motor whine.
To me, that’s the sound of the future, what a motorcycle SHOULD sound like. Of course, one of my first motorcycle memories was watching the Light Cycles in TRON at a drive-in theater. Thirty years later, we finally have REAL (unlike TRON’s computer animated) electric motorcycles, and the Harley is going to be shown off in a big way in the Marvel’s upcoming AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON.
A little while back, I saw some sneaked photos from the set, that were highlighting the actors, but what I noticed was the Harley Livewire. Since the AVENGERS preview came out yesterday, we can finally see the LIVEWIRE in action.
Here’s some screen-grabs from 1:27 and 1:34 that feature the cycle. Black Widow launches from an airplane KNIGHTRIDER-style, followed by Captain America doing some slo-mo drifting at 1:34.
For me, movies have always been the land of imagination, where the fictional becomes real. TRON really was the inspiration for me to build my own electric motorcycle.
Now, we instead are getting not just “product placement” in movies, but clever nods to the real world as well. (I was the only one in the theater who laughed at the joke of Elon Musk’s cameo in IRON MAN 2.) In reality, we’ve had some good electric motorcycles for a while, with Brammo and Zero topping the list. Even electric scooters are going mainstream.
But, if Black Widow or Captain America riding an electric motorcycle gets somebody excited about E.V. two-wheelers, I’m all for it!
I may not be a super-hero, but I gotta say that building your own vehicle and then hitting the road with no engine noise and instant torque is about as close it it comes to being super-human. Not bad for a kid who has seen too many movies.
Batteries to power, turbines to speed. And don’t forget the popcorn.
-Ben
PS: I’ve also spotted the Tesla Model S several times on the current television version of Green Arrow.
PPS: I finally got to see AVENGERS 2. The scene with the motorcycle is a pretty good chase. Too bad it’s only one scene, but at least the editors didn’t dub Vroooom Vrooooom sounds effects in. The motorcycle sounds GREAT in the movie!
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