First look at this bright yellow motorcycle and its faithful sidekick will surely give you the impression that you are looking at a BMW. But the fact of a matter is that it is not at all a BMW (Well, maybe except the outer shell that is). This is the Rotohak and it is a bit of a hack to be honest. This BMW shell is powered by a Mazda engine, which apparently offers more power and more maneuverability than the original. Bob Pelikan (No that is not a bird) is the builder of this modified machine and according to him it works like a charm.
The BMW was initially bought and sold by Bob to apparently a guy named Bill in Chicago. But Bob soon wanted his baby back and bought it back from Bill who was kind enough to give it back to exactly what he had paid to get it. After riding is for a few weeks Bob decided to give it a major overhaul by fitting it with a new engine. For this he found a sequential twin turbo inter-cooled Mazda Cosmo engine at a local Japanese engine importer and began a year long project of fitting the engine into the chassis and of fitting the sidecar body around the larger engine.
After all of Bob’s incredible hard work, we have the Rotohak. The bike apparently still serves Bob’s family with great distinction and Bob is very happy with his work. I am pretty sure BMW would not have appreciated with all the tinkering, especially the engine. But Bob is the consumer and I guess it is the consumer who makes the final choice and has the final say. As nice as Rotohak might be, I never liked the type, so I will take a pass. Still nice work put in by Bob and he needs to be given some credit for it.
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