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That's going to be a heavy bike, OT!

Musk has made a startling announcement that his Tesla company will cease making Tesla Model X and Model S EV's, starting from the 2nd quarter of this year. Musk claims his company needs to concentrate on the production of its AI-powered autonomous humanoid robot, Optimus. Manufacture of the Model 3 and Model Y EV's will continue. Sales of the Model X and Model S and the Tesla Cybertruck fell by 40% in the last year, with Chinese EV's making inroads into Tesla EV sales. Musk said Tesla would make major investments in battery, solar cell, and computer chip manufacturing in the U.S., in 2026. It will be an interesting year, this year. https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/tesla-axes-series-s-and-x-to-build-optimus-robots.html#:~:text=Tesla will globally discontinue its,a surprise announcement on Thursday.

The BBC has a good article on fiat currency. Marco Polo became excited beyond belief, when he discovered mulberry bark currency notes circulating in China in the late 1200's. He wrote enthusiastically about the entire process of manufacturing the notes from bark, and how the ruler Kublai Khan authorised his deputies to put their seal on the notes, to guarantee their authenticity and value. Of course, as with all fiat currencies, a lack of gold or silver backing, counterfeit money, and excessive production of the notes led to severe devaluation, and the mulberry bark currency became worthless. It was possibly worsened by a decline in Kublai Khans power, caused by excessive warring (especially with Japan), financial mismanagement, corruption amongst Govt officials, and high taxation levels. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40879028 "THE TEXT: You must know that he has money made for him by the following process, out of the bark of trees – to be precise, from mulberry trees (the same whose leaves furnish food for silk-worms). The fine bast between the bark and the wood of the tree is stripped off. Then it is crumbled and pounded and flattened out with the aid of glue into sheets like sheets of cotton paper, which are all black. When made, they are cut up into rectangles of various sizes, longer than they are broad. The smallest is worth half a small tornesel; the next an entire such tornesel; the next half a silver groat; the next an entire silver groat, equal in value to a silver groat of Venice; and there are others equivalent to two, five, and ten groats and one, three, and as many as ten gold bezants. And all these papers are sealed with the seal of the Great Khan. The procedure of issue is as formal and as authoritative as if they were made of pure gold or silver. On each piece of money several specially appointed officials write their names, each setting his own stamp. When it is completed in due form, the chief of the officials deputed by the Khan dips in cinnabar the seal or bull assigned to him and stamps it on the tops of the piece of money so that the shape of the seal in vermillion remains impressed upon it. And then the money is authentic. And if anyone were to forge it, he would suffer the extreme penalty. - Marco Polo, The Travels, 14th Century AD"

I never knew the Italian car manufacturers made currencies! Do they have an Alfa-Romeo currency, too? 😄

Trumps new appointee to head the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh is seen as a "hawk" on U.S. interest rates, with a desire to keep them up until inflation in the U.S. is tamed. Trump wants the interest rates dropped NOW, and that made all the investors flee to gold and silver for fear of Trump getting his way, and causing more inflation. They feared that any Trump appointee to the Federal Reserve would just be a loyal Trump stooge, doing exactly what he wants. However, once all the investors learned that Warsh was being appointed, they dropped all their gold and silver investments (it's called "profit-taking" anyway), and put their money back into treasury bonds and other financial instruments. It seems obvious their fears about Trump ruling the interest rate levels and destroying the U.S. economy with his lack of economic knowledge has evaporated with the appointment of Warsh, and Warsh might have some backbone to resist Trumps demands and abuse. Jerome Powell certainly knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of Trump abuse, lawsuits and outrageous demands. It's critical that the Federal Reserve remains independent of any external political pressure - everyone in the U.S. knows that.

That's a treasure; it would be great to hear it running one day. Beautiful sounding engines, the flathead V8s. Not that efficient of a design but the sidevalve setup gives them that nice unique sound.

Where have you been? The 1% Club is a TV game show, with UK, Australian and US versions, and possibly other countries as well. An group of 100 contestants in the studio are each given an amount of $1000 in Aus, and £1000 in the UK. They face a series of quiz questions which have been checked against a test group of 1000 people, which identifies the difficulty of the question. If 90% of the 1000 get it right, it is called the 90% question, and is fairly simple. If a contestant gets it wrong, they are eliminated from the game, and their $1000 goes into a prize pot. If 80% of the 1000 get it right, it becomes the 80% question. The same goes for the 75%, 70%, 60% and so on till they reach a question only 1% of the 1000 test group can answer correctly. Contestants get 30 seconds to solve the question while the host rambles on with distracting chatter. Contestants are eliminated at each level and their stake is added to the prize pot. Anyone not eliminated when they reach the 1% question can take $10,000 or risk it to attempt the 1% question, where they could win (or share if more than 1 get that far) the total of the prize pot, which could have risen to $100,000. The hosts, or question masters, are Jim Jeffries in Australia, Lee Mack in the UK and Patton Oswalt in the US.

I've got a 1938 Cadillac V8, 346 cu in engine to restore. It's side valve, but has hydraulic valve lifters! - and it produces a whopping 135BHP! I saved it from the scrapman - it was one of two, that powered standby 40Hz generators in the Metro Theatre in Perth (which opened in Sept 1938). The Metro was demolished with little care in 1973, and they dropped roof beams on the generators, and smashed them up, breaking carbies and distributors and other parts. But I managed to acquire most of the damaged parts over the years from eBay, from sellers in the U.S. Now all I have to do is rebuild it. It's a massive donk, it weighs over 500lbs (227kgs), and I don't really know what to put it in. T It's reported that they run smooth as silk, and this engine was fitted to a number of WW2 tanks, and noted for its smoothness and quietness. They drove GM Hydramatic trannies in the tanks.

Yes, the Goldwing motors would be ideal. A lot of car motors are too tall for having a traditional bike tank on top. This one looks like a GL1000 Goldwing motor.

Options VW Beetle engine. Honda Goldwing 6 cyl, Toyota Yaris they used to go cheap as there was little call FOR THEM. Nev

What IS the 1% club? Nev

Just found out there is a US version of The 1% Club, but it is not showing in Australia. Not surprising that there's a US version. The host is Patton Oswalt.

Just a project update, bearing in mind the whole harebrained idea is only a week old. At this stage, until a decision on the engine is made (do I put the V6 in it or source a more sensible motorcycle engine) there's no point doing any frame, tank, front end or side panel work. The rear wheel and sidecar wheels can be worked on, hub, brake, bearings, axle etc., and some initial sidecar chassis setout. This week I might see if I can set up a dedicated shelf area in the shed for components or component contenders. It would help to have it all in one place and readily visible. I'd like to avoid new hardware bits and pieces as much as possible and use mainly components that have some history and a bit of a story behind them. For instance, I've still got my Norton number plate from the early 70's, and a couple of days ago found two small spotlights from my old HJ Holden ute I had in the early 80's. Instead of things going straight to the pool room, they can go straight on the ratbike. As far as nuts, bolts, washers, piping, electrical harness and other small, odd fittings, I have stacks of scrap bin aviation stuff from various aircraft. That could be an initial job - sorting all that stuff into categories. With enough aircraft bits, maybe it could be classified as a rat bikeoplane.

Just in passing' hasn't Gold and silver toppled. WHAT IS going on? Nev

I reckon you WILL anyhow. Nev

They went broke when they couldn't get the German Made bearings. Nev

As mentioned elswhere, Trump's World Liberty Financial issued a stablecoin designated as $USD1. Stablecoins are digital assets pegged to a fiat currency, in this case, the U.S. Dollar. So what are a 'fiat currency' and its operating device, 'fiat money'. Fiat money is a type of government-issued currency, authorized by government regulation to be legal tender. Typically, fiat currency is not backed by a precious metal, such as gold or silver, nor by any other tangible asset or commodity. In days of yore, kings, emperors and other governing bodies facilitated trade across distance by producing tokens (coins) to which they assigned a nominal value, usually based on a set amount of the valuable physical item. Evenutally the valuable physical item came to be a metal. The metal could be gold, silver, copper or an alloy such as bronze. The common feature of the item was that it could be used to produce other things such as jewellery in the case of gold and silver, or simpler objects in the case of copper and bronze. The value of the item was related to a predetermined value of the metal, and that value was set by the producer of the item. As the populations of the regions using coins increased, and the amount of trade carried on over large distances increased, the amount of valuable physical material available to produce coins lessened. Also as the value of transaction increased, it became difficult to carry large weights of coins over long distances. So 'paper money' was invented. Paper money was first used in China in the 7th century A.D. Like modern banking, individuals would deposit coins with a trustworthy party and receive a note indicating the amount. The note could then be redeemed for currency at a later date. In other words, the note was backed by actual physical items. Eventually global trade grew to such levels that governments could not continue to meet the promise of exchanging note for valuable physical items made of "precious" metals. This lead to the adoption of fiat currencies and fiat money. In monetary economics, fiat money is an intrinsically valueless object or record that is accepted widely as a means of payment. Accordingly, the value of fiat money is greater than the value of its metal or paper content. Fiat money generally does not have intrinsic value nor a use value. It has value only because the individuals who use it (as a unit of account or, in the case of currency, a medium of exchange) agree on its value. They trust that it will be accepted by merchants and other people as a means of payment for liabilities. From 1944 to 1971, the Bretton Woods agreement fixed the value of 35 United States dollars to one troy ounce of gold. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars with the dollar convertible to gold bullion for foreign governments and central banks. Other currencies were calibrated with the U.S. dollar at fixed rates: for example the pound sterling traded for many years within a narrow band centred on US$2.80. The Bretton Woods system was ended by what became known as the Nixon shock, a series of economic changes by United States President Richard Nixon in 1971. These changes included unilaterally canceling the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Since then, a system of national fiat monies has been used globally, with variable exchange rates between the major currencies. In modern economies, relatively little of the supply of money is physical currency. For example, in December 2010 in the U.S., of the $8,853.4 billion of money supply in all forms , only $915.7 billion (about 10%) consisted of physical coins and paper money So now, all those trillions of dollars spoken of in relation to international and domestic debt are simply numbers in ledgers. Their actual worth relies solely on the promises of the buyer to pay the seller what is owed. Global debt reached a record high of nearly $346 trillion by the third quarter of 2025, driven by surging government borrowing in both developed and emerging markets. This figure represents over 300% of global GDP. That means that roughly only $115 trillion in debt could be met through productivity. The remaining $230 trillion is Scotch mist.

Sorry.. couldn't resist. A later model flying Merkel: (Ignore the message)

Mentioned in this article when speaking of Trump's Stablecoin, is this little gem: World Liberty Financial issued a stablecoin designated as $USD1. Stablecoins are digital assets pegged to a fiat currency, in this case, the U.S. Dollar. It is that thing 'fiat currency' that can be the downfall of the Global economy if the puppetmasters working Trump's strings continue on theri current path. I'm going to talk about fiat currencies in a separate thread in the Politics forum, if you would like to learn more.

I actually Got THAT story at Norseman about 18 Years ago when I stayed there so I thought it had a Possibility of it being correct. It was stinking hot so a went to ESPERENCE for 3 days. Nev

I have Much to Learn it seems. Nev

Look UP " The FLYING MERKEL" . I once had a 1912 Model,. Sprung rear wheel. Ball race Big end. USA BUILT, The AMERICANS made the Most Innovative Bikes back then Nev

That Flying Millyard is quite amazing. He even made his own carburettors.

Yeah, but the compression ratio of the Model T Ford was around 4.00:1 when it was new! - imagine how soon that dropped to 3.5:1 with the materials used back then, and the lack of filtering! An old farmer client (long deceased, he died in 1994), cut a Model T engine in half and used it to power a grinder in his workshop. What is even more remarkable, he found the crank throws needed to be realigned, so he cut the crank in half again, and re-aligned the crank throws to a flat plane! This was all done with the most basic farm workshop tools. The cut-in-half engine ran just fine, and powered his grinder for years and years.