Headlines were made and riders around the world were shocked recently when Mclaren launched its eccentric Extreme 600 e-bike, but the Woking supercar brand and F1 team is not the first car manufacturer to dip its toe into the muddy waters of mountain biking. From Porsche to Lamborghini, via Lotus and Audi, pretty much every luxury car brand has tried to join the lifestyle dots between two and four wheels… with varying degrees of success. In the past, it was usually a case of lazy, half-baked licensing deals with established bike manufacturers – including some painfully embarrassing case studies involving none other than Ferrari – and while this continues to some extent, most car brands have sought to put their own engineering and creative stamp on the bikes bearing their names. Again, this has produced some wildly varying results, that – as in the case of the McLaren’s handlebars – can be more about standing out from the crowd than offering what mountain bikers actually want. But we’re making one massively erroneous assumption here; that these performance car brands care one iota about what mountain bikers think, or whether we actually end up buying any of their bikes. Of course they don’t. They want to sell to the type of customer that might buy one to get around the marina where his or her yacht is moored, or to take a leisurely tour of their sprawling country estate, not to pull off the roof of their McLaren Artura in the car park at BikePark Wales. While we jest about the target customer, and some of the more outlandish design details, we actually welcome the presence of these household marques in the marketplace. It shows that mountain biking is on the radar for these massive, multi-billion dollar businesses, which means the people running them either think it’s cool – maybe some of them are riders – or they see a financial or marketing opportunity. Just look at the relative scale of Porsche compared to Specialized; in 2023 Porsche revenue was £35bn, for Specialized it was £400m. Which makes Porsche 87 times bigger than Specialized. Down the line that could mean cash for the bike industry, potentially through sponsorship of race teams or race series. Maybe even funding for new trails. But enough general chat, let’s take a look at the bikes themselves. Some are historic models, and some are on sale today. But the thing that ties them altogether is that they are all truly unique designs. Porsche E-Bike Cross Although no longer available, Porsche’s E-Bike Cross fairly successfully walked the tightrope between looking like a conventional mountain bike, and something futuristic and conceptual. Maybe that’s because the Stuttgart sports car brand enlisted the help of Rotwild bikes to assist with the design and engineering. The styling was done in-house at Studio Porsche, and the designers have been remarkably restrained when you look at some of the creations their industry colleagues have penned. It still has that classic double-diamond bicycle frame, … Continue reading I dream of owning a Lamborghini or a Porsche, but I’d never buy one of their mountain bikes!