Imaginactive is the brainchild of one Charles Bombardier of BRP royalty, and it draws on some of the best engineering and design talent in the world to come up with fresh new ideas, as well as improvements on existing designs. Today, I want to take a look at one of their more interesting concept vehicles, the Drakkar trike designed in collaboration with Ashish Thulkar from the Indian Institute of Science. It's a three-wheeler intended for off-road->ke450 enduro->ke3133 environments and it sure does look the part.

Continue reading for my look at the Drakkar.

Design Concept

Visually, I notice the influence of the Can-Am Spyder->ke3456 with a similar overall shape and a safe and stable, delta-trike configuration. But, instead of being designed strictly for street use, the Drakkar is designed to tackle the brown as well as the black with an enduro-like bent that includes laced rims mounting semi-knobby tires and a rugged build that looks like it can take some abuse, to say the least.

Additionally, designers envision a two-stroke, hydrogen-powered engine to drive the beast. I like this idea in theory; hydrogen is easy to produce, and though it gets a bad rap as a dangerous gas, the fact is, it isn't any more dangerous than other gasses and volatile liquid fuels already in use, it merely has a larger combustion bracket. All that means is that it will ignite with a larger range of fuel-to-air ratios than most other fuels, but the same safe-handling methods currently in place for other fuels, such as LNG for instance, work for hydrogen as well.

Performance

Designers expect to see around 166 horsepower from the 800 cc engine, plenty of power to the rear wheel for any kind of terrain, and probably more than you will be able to use fully on any soft surfaces. A “carving seat” leaves plenty of room for some extreme body English, and maybe it's the Dakar race in the back of my head, but I can see this thing ripping across under-developed areas and deserts alike in a competitive environment. A twist-it-and-forget-it, CVT transmission would handle the gear ratios, though they'll have to reinvent the wheel on that one 'cause a scooter CVT ain't going to cut it. Perhaps something more like Honda's->ke291 Dual-Clutch Transmission would be the hot trick here?

Also on the drawing board is a force-feedback function in the seat, but I'm not sure what information you'll get out of that feature that isn't already apparent in your heinie-dyno, to be honest. An intelligent stability system will help keep the thing dirty-side-down, and since nothing is on the assembly line yet, an all-wheel drive system has been floated as one of the possibilities to increase performance in sand or snow. Best of all, since this company's business is theorycraft, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Can-Am itself could snap up this idea and put it into production, especially since it's based largely on existing technology, and is a viable machine even without the hydrogen powerplant.

What's In A Name?

The only thing I don't get about this ride is the name. I mean, yeah, Drakkar sounds really cool and rolls off the tongue, but it's French for “longship” in the Viking fashion. Pencil me in as don't get the connection. If you know, leave me a message below; I'd love to know. That said, this is one cool looking ride, and I look forward to seeing who decides to build it.