Local Motors’ Electric Drift Trike is a Thing of Awesome

Built by crowdsourcing favorites Local Motors, the electric, adult-sized BigWheel you see here is called the Verrado- and it is every kind of awesome there is.

There are very few feelings in life like the thrill you got when you pulled your first 360 on your BigWheel. Like so many of the most amazing things that will ever happen to you, you were probably too young to remember it- and there’s no way to find that feel again. Or, is there?

That’s what the sport of drift triking is all about: re-capturing the thrills of your BigWheel-inspired youth in old age. To that end, Chris and I, both, have professed that we’d be willing to die on (or, rather, being thrown off of) a high-quality drift trike. “High quality”, of course, being a necessity- and that’s where Local Motors comes in.

After building the top-shelf Rally Fighter and introducing the board-track inspired Cruiser a short while ago, Local Motors should need no introduction. For their drift trike, Local stuffs a MagicPie 3-hub brushless motor and a lithium cobalt manganese battery into the bike’s “big” 20-inch front wheel. Out back, five-inch steel wheels are fitted with 10-inch kart tires for grip- and those are wrapped in PVC plastic sleeves almost an inch thick for drifting. Disc brakes with a KERS-like regenerative braking system help bring the trike to a stop in a hurry if things get too hairy.

I have a feeling, however, that hitting the brakes on one of these Local drift trike deals would be morally wrong.

I’ll need about $1600 to find out, however. That’s what Local Motors is asking for a new Verrado, which is scheduled to start shipping out to its well-heeled customers in June. (Get it? See what I did there? Well-heeled … Ha!)

Source | Photos: Gizmag.