Claude Baudin and Rick Hills
The idea of electric vehicles (EVs) is nothing new. Companies have been working on the concept since the gasoline rationing days of former President Jimmy Carter. Today there are a number of hybrid cars on the road combining electric motors with standard gasoline engines. But thus far, the electric motorcycle has been an elusive build. That's about to change.
There are a small number of companies working on electric versions of racing bikes. The bikes are built to be lightweight and easily manageable so as to make them as efficient as possible. However, fans of touring bikes and other classic designs find the new machines rather ugly. Enter two friends from Northwest Florida.
Rick Hills of Fort Walton Beach and Claude Baudin of Santa Rosa Beach decided they needed a new project a while back. So after discussing it, they decided to build their own electric motorcycle with a classic look and feel. Not only was their bike a huge success, they also managed to get it entered into the exclusive Riding Into History show in Saint Augustine. That's no small feat when you consider the show only accepts about 350 entries every year. Hills and Baudin's creation was the hit of this year's show.
The Build
The two friends began the project by figuring out what kind of body to use. They wanted something that would accommodate a revolutionary electric motor without sacrificing the classic styling they both loved. They settled on 1974 Moto Guzzi Eldorado body, knowing it would be big and strong enough to handle the load of heavy batteries.
Hills put his experience as an electrical engineer to work designing the best electrical system and the batteries to match. Baudin's contribution was to figure out how to assemble everything within the body's framework. They spent countless hours drawing cardboard replicas and mixing and matching parts like an over-sized, 3-D puzzle.
When the bike was finally finished, the pair pre-registered with Ride Into History. Show organizers weren't exactly sure how to classify the bike, given its mixture of a vintage body and modern technology, but they eventually classified it as a special display model. As for how well the bike performed at the show, the great response from attendees tells the story.
Hills and Baudin told NWF Daily News that people were 'all over it' at the show. It was partly due to the fact that their bike was the first-ever electric model displayed at Ride Into History, but more than that was the curiosity surrounding the entire concept of an electric motorcycle. Bikers have known for a while that EVs are coming; they just aren't sure what they will look like when they start rolling off the assembly line.
If Hills and Baudin have anything to say about it, EV technology is not going to ruin classic styling. There is a way to combine then both in a bike that is bold, beautiful, extremely stylish, and eco-friendly.
