Ever wondered which vehicle holds the world record for having an engine with the most amount of cylinders?
If your guess is that it is something huge, like a plane, a ship, or a tank, you’re up for a great surprise as the correct answer is – a two-stroke motorcycle. Yes, you read that right.
Meet the Whitelock Tinker Toy; a 48-cylinder motorcycle which was created by Hertfordshire Superbike Centre in the UK. Based on the 2 stroke Kawasaki triples, the Tinker Toy has 48 cylinders and a capacity of a massive 4200cc. It consists of 16 Kawasaki KH250 3-cylinder engines arranged in six banks of eight and is completely road-legal.
Believe it or not, the engine is so large it has a complete single-cylinder 2-stroke engine to serve as a starter motor.
According to the builder and owner of Hertfordshire Superbikes, Simon Whitelock, the insane motorcycle actually has 49 cylinders.
“The 48 cylinder lump is slightly harder to start than your conventional motorcycle engine, so instead of an electronic starter motor, we decided to use what we call a “donkey engine”- a little sub-50cc engine, which is started, and in turn that starts the 48 cylinder engine,” said Simon.
That said, we know that you would love to see the engine work and hear how it sounds, so here it is…
