Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Porsche Bike Spyder found!

 

This is significant! Porsche Bike history confirmed! For the longest time, I believed the prototype Porsche Bike Spyder 9.85 was one of one and the original line of 300 produced for sale (as reported in the Christophorus May 1991 edition) were never produced. That is what I believed. 

But today a friend emailed me a link to a bike for sale on the German eBay site. And this bike looks exactly like the Bike Spyder 9.85. Notably missing is the "Porsche" logo but does say Bike Spyder in the Porsche script. Also on this eBay listed bike is a plaque with "Bike Spyder 37/200". The listing information says only 140 pieces were ultimately produced.

Without a Porsche logo, the name Thomas Menzel on the frame, and the completion date of August 1993, I believe Porsche declined to produce the 300 bikes for sale and Thomas Menzel's bike company elected to produce 200 for sale. Menzel is also mentioned in the Christophorus May 1991 article about the Bike Spyder 9.85 prototype. A Google search shows Menzel professionally connected to Ulrich Bez (1980s Porsche Vehicle Research and Development Department lead and also mentioned in the Christophorus article). I suspect the Menzel production since the name Porsche was left off. Menzel likely convinced Porsche to let his company make and sell the bikes since he was involved with the prototype design (again per the Christophorus magazine article).

This proves the existence of a 200 run of the original Bike Spyder 9.85! This bike is for sale for $6,500 USD. A true piece of Porsche Bike history. I sure want to buy it!

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