Ludovic Lazareth is not the lead singer of a European Black Metal band, but might as well be. Witness his company’s flesh-consuming Lazareth LM847, just revealed at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, and dominated by a Maserati V8 mounted amidships. Don’t bother filling out your organ donor card; crash this thing at speed and you’ll just be a medium-sized cloud of pink mist.
This French-Swiss machine is a pretty simple creation at heart. The transmission is a single-speed affair, with twin chain drives for the rear tires. The rear end is lifted from a Ducati Panigale 1299, and the brakes feature huge 8-piston Nissin calipers up front and 4-piston Brembos out back. More a quad than a motorcycle, the four-wheeled LM847 has to be leaned over to turn, if you’ve got the stones.
But like the Viper-engined Dodge Tomahawk, the LM847 is all about the engine. In this case, it’s a 32-valve, 4.7-liter Maserati V8, cranking out 470 horsepower and 457 pound-feet. The rider essentially lies atop the intake manifold, feeling the beat of those eight pistons hammering away inside your ribcage as the Italian-made lump screams towards a 7,000-rpm redline. The rider, presumably, is expected to do some of the screaming as well.
Long and unwieldy though it may be, curb weight for this monstrosity is under 900 pounds, giving it a power-to-weight ratio normally reserved for the Apollo missions. Unlike a manned Moon mission, however, once you light the candle on the LM847, you’re not ever coming back.
