This Weird Street-Legal Quad Is The Coolest Thing I Saw At Daytona Bike Week

"Hey, what's that?," I shouted over the din of thousands of revving motorcycles and blasting mobile audio systems. While walking around the parking lot of the Daytona International Speedway during the 85th annual Daytona Bike Week, that's a pretty common thing to shout. The beachside town is absolutely littered with oddball motorcycles and custom projects that don't look like any bike you've ever seen before (I saw three Campagna T-Rexes, for gosh sake), so there's a lot of stuff that requires a second glance. As I walked over to this mean green machine, I vaguely remembered a four-wheeled street-legal bike project from a boutique manufacturer perhaps two decades earlier. What was it called? 

The gauge cluster of this bizarre beast let me know that it's a GG Quad, and a cursory peek around the internet says that Swiss company Grüter + Gut Motorrad Techniks built about two-hundred of these BMW-powered four-wheelers. With a 1200cc flat twin, this bike/car thing is plenty quick, making approximately 100 horsepower and 85 lb-ft of torque as it left Bavaria. I imagine the BMW drivetrain was largely chosen because of its diehard reliability and shaft-drive layout, making mating it to a custom rear differential relatively easy. Later examples used an R1250 BMW flat twin, while the later-still Quadster cribbed BMW's K1200 S horizontal four-cylinder with a borderline scary 167 horsepower. 

Bradley Brownell/Jalopnik

Apparently, GG made (the company closed in 2015) high-end quads and trikes from motorcycles for a discerning clientele, and these were quite expensive when they were new. This Los Angeles Times review from 2008 says they started at $65,500 and went up from there. The LA Times review indicated that while around 250 of these things had been built by that point, just 13 examples had been imported to the U.S., likely because they have four wheels, defining them as passenger vehicles, which require things like airbags and seatbelts. Some states will allow it, but major motorcycle markets like California balk at giving such things a license plate. No matter the case, this is a properly rare sighting!

As luck would have it, while looking for more information about this bonkers contraption, I found an auction listing over on Iconic Motor Bike Auctions where this exact example sold in December for $20,000. They described the bike as having "an advanced F1-style, machined aluminum chassis that's been slightly stretched for greater stability." It was touted as being capable of more than one lateral G through the corners, which sounds like a lot when you realize you have to hold on while it's pulling said lateral G. 

In her LA Times review, Susan Carpenter said of riding the GG: 

It took me a while to feel comfortable taking corners at even moderately high speeds. My instinct was to counterbalance my body weight as I would on an ATV, but that wasn't necessary. Taking fast turns on the Quadster, you aren't likely to tip but to drift because the bike's center of gravity is so low and its high-performance, low-profile tires are so wide-set. I learned the best way to hang on in corners was to grip the bike with my knees instead of holding on for dear life with the handlebars.

Bradley Brownell

Based on the auction photos, this green machine came with included side pods that doubled as a large aerodynamic trunks for hauling more stuff and housing for additional speakers. The owner of this one has, smartly, opted to pull those off of the quadbike to facilitate climbing on and off easier, and not looking like as much of a frickin' dork. 

This definitely isn't a pretty machine, and I'm not sure I'd like to own one. Especially not for $20,000. But I'd love the opportunity to ride one for a day just to see what it's like. There's something appealing about a car with handlebar controls which you ride on top of; it takes up about the same space as a Smart Fortwo, and weighs half as much. Allegedly, it'll do 0-60 in 4.8 seconds and runs up to 115 miles per hour. On second thought, maybe I'd just like to sit on it for a few minutes.