There was an article about it, in ADB back in the day.
It strikes me that he was well beyond ambitious when he built it. The hub steering, 2WD, and 2WS don't have to go together - it would be SO much easier to develop and sort any one of these at a time, compared to all three at once.
None of them would require a DIY motor, either.
Each to their own, but I find it hard to avoid disappointment that such a talent and vision was ultimately buried by an excess of ambition.
I don't think he ever thought it was going to be a success as a bike straight off, it was always meant to be a test bed for innovative ideas. If he had only used one idea on a bike it would have been swept under the carpet and he would never have been noticed.
He has gone on to build some 'conventional' bikes.
Nutty Professor Society, Left to right...
Dave Murray, Ken Horner, Ian Drysdale, Barry Horner, Lindsay Urquhart, & Paul Carberry.
Ian Drysdale invited me and a few others from the Diamond Valley club to his workshop in the early eighties. We knew he had been building something top secret but didn’t know exactly what. We were confronted with his two wheel drive, two wheel steer hydraulically driven motorcycle.
The expansion chamber finished with a closed cone and the stinger bled the exhaust gases from the belly section, it had hydraulic suspension and a carby facing forward on a back to front barrel that he had cast based on a Maico barrel.
With so many different ideas incorporated into one project it was always going to be an uphill battle to get everything working in conjunction so it was no real surprise when not long after our visit the press took it for a spin and they were baffled as to what to make of it.
There was no denying though that Ian was more than capable of thinking outside the square.
