less is more

Small batch, autonomously engaged, hand-made craftsmanship; imagine an environment where your needs and desires are deliberately and entirely catered by an individualist nurtured system of heuristic creation. Honest craftsmen would romantically connect to the fruit of their labor. This passion would imbue character and sincerity in the everyday tools of our existence. All things created by human effort would be touched by actual human emotion. Many fewer things would exist.

The idea is that paying a fair albeit higher transaction price for one motorcycle lovingly designed and crafted to span several lifetimes for reasons transcendent of mere dollars and cents is the environmentally sustainable, financially wise, life affirming choice relative to paying less for numerous Taylor-made, commoditized, economies of scale driven motorcycles over the course of your riding time-span. From the rear-view mirrored perspective, the singularity will certainly become a self-illuminating, life affirming, treasured personal heirloom; the multiplicity will bring noise, opacity and diminishing enjoyment over time as planned obsolescence naturally takes root.

Logical extension of our concept applied to each commercial choice you make results in organic minimalism. Commercial decisions necessarily would be predicated upon endearing value, structural integrity, real-world performance and permanence. A clutter free, clean environment for slimmed down, calmed down, clarified, simplified personal human integration would follow.

The key is nurtured individual heuristic actualization. The opponent is scale.

Rewind Magazine interviews Matt Chambers

The following is an excerpt from Singapore’s Rewind Magazine interview with Matt Chambers, CEO/Founder Confederate Motors, Inc.

Tim McIntyre: You have said “Through machine and brand, [we] encourage a new approach where every person is nurtured to be what they were born to be, in harmony with what’s going on inside themselves.” Why is this important?

Matt Chambers: Confederate embodies Anti-Taylorism. Frederick Winslow Taylor developed theories of human efficiency which resulted in bureaucrats trained to manage our algorithmic output. This theory diminishes heuristic creativity, which is the source of human growth and progress. Thusly, we mandate handmade craftsmanship created autonomously with acute engagement.

Tim McIntyre: What else is wrong with the state of the bike industry today?

Matt Chambers: Not enough heart; too much focus on short term cash accumulation!

Tim McIntyre: What does design integrity mean to you? What is your definition of great design? Can you cite examples?

Matt Chambers: The cornerstone of design integrity is purity expressed honestly. This can only occur through activation of individualists soulful intuition. Deep yearning and engagement are at the root of this process.

Tim McIntyre: And what does good engineering mean to you?

Matt Chambers: Perfection of structural integrity, permanent fatigue resistance, street motoring geometry, harmonious component specification with maximum torque.

Tim McIntyre: What in your opinion is the essence of a Confederate motorcycle?

Matt Chambers: Spiritually, we say contempt for ingratiation fuels humilities defeat of pride activating man-in-revolt celebrating the art of rebellion. Dynamically, Hunter S. Thompson said it best, “Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.”

Tim McIntyre: Tell me a bit about the Fighter?

Matt Chambers: It expresses a direct challenge to establishmentarian thought.

Tim McIntyre: Who are your customers? Can you walk us through the buying process.

Matt Chambers: Our client is a motorcycling purist and aficionado with a love for true to concept American industrial and mechanical design. Our buying process is entirely buyer-centric. We seek gentlemanly engagement at the precise level which is most satisfactory to our client.
Tim McIntyre: What have you enjoyed most about your journey so far with Confederate motorcycles?

Matt Chambers: The best efforts of our team to deliver on the promise of organic, pure, honesty.

Tim McIntyre: And the part you’ve enjoyed the least?

Matt Chambers: The shock of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath; which, paradoxically, was what we needed to become the tough, strong company we are today.

Tim McIntyre: Looking back, is there anything you would have done different?

Matt Chambers: I have made many mistakes; my personal manner is to transparently admit my mistakes to myself, prayerfully acknowledge deeply felt contrition, seek forgiveness and, then, let it go. Repeating such emotion may deem one to a repetitive cycle.

Tim McIntyre: What’s next for man and company?

Matt Chambers: Our team has developed a new American heirloom architecture from which we derive a veritable onslaught of new modular relevant machines for the 2011, 2012, and 2013 pipeline. Because we are well-grounded by deeply nurturing ideals and principles, our new machines will explosively activate each owner’s inner man-in- revolt.

Fighter Production Photos (part 1)

THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE.

The first of the 50 toughest machines ever made is now being created.

It is the spring of ’78, a perfect South Louisiana graduation midnight, 70 humid degrees, top down Jensen Healy, 85 mph midway on highway 61 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans heading South for some major debauchery with the long time best friend; suddenly a dim hazy mirage of bubbling asymmetrical lighting in the rear view becomes 20+ marginal headlights surrounded by a Thor like pounding offbeat thrum rheostatically growing in volume until, in perfect formation, the sons of silence blazenly shoot past on ultra lean, stripped, triangulated forms.

An idea is planted.  Thirteen years later that idea forments into a dream.  On November 30, that dream actualizes into the ride of your life.

The Sodium Assault

Our circa ’09 Bonneville Salt Flats sojourn was the most memorable to date. Our Arabic 1 pre-production prototype fired a mere 96 hours prior to hitting the Salt.

The sodium assault was indeed hard as we ran several 155+ mph passes. Please understand that this represents a one mile average on conditions which were sticky and wet compared to the ideal. I made a call to change gearing early in the week when a bump in the rev limiter was a more appropriate choice. Had I made the right decision, it is likely we would have surpassed our own record set on the Wraith in 08. Nevertheless, a very smooth riding, easy to start, linear to modulate, vibration free, raw, naked confederate that will run 155.8 mph on wet salt is something we can all be proud of. The fact that it was accomplished on the first build of the Fighter model production run calibrating less than 10 miles on the odometer is cool. The fact that the same machines was tested on the Race Tech chassis dyno and determined to be the truest and straightest of the 360 OEM machines previously evaluated thereon is an accurate validation of the precision which our design and craft team brings to the business of creating the greatest American motorcycle it is possible to make.

The family and friends component of the annual event grew considerably this year. Conversations revolved around all manner of things, transcending the lust for speed on racing’s most hallowed ground into areas both frivolous, serious and outright amusing in a “you had to be there” kind of way.

We have a top secret game changing initiative for 2010. Please stay tuned; you will be glad you did!

photography by Randal Crow

Photos from CM @ The Quail Lodge: A Motorsports Gathering

A Lush Midnight Ride in the Deep South

A Lush Midnight Ride in the Deep South
06/19/09

A little after 10 in the evening I sparked the 131 Combat edition Hellcat initiating a blast straight down 59 from Northern Mississippi to the French Quarter.  It was 87.  I was wearing perf leather and our carbon fiber full-face helmet.

Gently I rowed through the gears, covering a couple of miles to reach my desired 3500 RPMs in top gear.  This machine was tuned to the 21 tooth counter-shaft sprocket, making 92 mph at 3500.  I held steady for 10 to 12 minutes.  As ever, the Generation 2 Hellcat felt taut, primal, like it was carved from solid granite, light, stable, linear; with never a harsh response.

Handlebar feel is street perfection.  Power at 3500 is “shred the tire cannon fire” at the wrist flick.  I drop to 3 grand (76 mph).  The sound of a small aircraft with the calmness of having decelerated from a greater pace put me in the optimal Hellcat rhythm.  Every aspect of the machine feels omnipotent, alive and happy.  I meld with that explosive, yet confident beautiful sense of ease and begin an ultimate motoring meditation I haven’t experienced for too long.

When you’re riding the greatest torque to weight ratio on the planet, you must blast beyond lethargic unassuming cageriders every few minutes to release pent up machine/man stress-inducing anxiety.  There exists uncontrolled relish and glee in this exercise.

At the end is the all important dismount.  My destination, at a few minutes past midnight, is an extraordinary and well-attended club.  As I pull up, amidst a bevy of youthful feminine beauty, there is always prevalent absolute reverence for the aesthetic design honesty of a Confederate motorcycle.  Because this respect is extended to the mount’s rider, the ending almost rivals the mid-journey overall sensations of therapeutic well-being.  I play disinterest, but as all latent middle-agers secretly know, absent some form of Trojan horse, the form of respect I’m referring to no longer exists.

For me, the value of the above referenced occasion based motoring experience is priceless.

A few words from Virgil Exner…

Confederate Testimonial (Part 1)

My first sighting was near the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles. The HELLCAT was parked alone. I stopped to look and the beast bit me! This triggered a fierce awakening of memories that had been lost and forgotten.

R Trinity

Early in the process of Hellcat gestation, the term Renaissance was adopted to internally codify the research, developmental and validation effort.  Wraith design is a continuation of renaissance. Metaphorical implication of a generation of American motoring design darkness is intentional.  Our use of dead iconography (Confederate, Hellcat, Wraith) is contextual.  A collectivist spiritual void is inferred from a generation of decline in American Industrial and mechanical design moxie.  Front wheel drive, P&G marketing, Roger smith, pure retro and “factory custom” senselessness leave every committed petrolhead saddened.  This result from a culture which gave us the Dodge Brothers, the Knucklehead, Crocker, the Airflow, Duesenberg, Cord, Cadillac, Alfred Sloan, Walter P. Chrysler, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Ed Cole, Virgil Exner, Bill Mitchell, the Corvair, rugged individualism, etc.

Coming out of the darkness into the light has been an incredibly uplifting experience.  Contempt for ingratiation was willingly adopted.  Design as art created solely for the sake of beauty and illumination of the as yet unimagined was mandated.  The liberation concurrent with addressing a struggle in which one absorbingly believes fueled and turbo charged structure and ideas not derivative from mere tangible motivation.

Renovatio, our initial post-Katrina creative expression, represents architectural form language from a new transformed superior beginning.  Fluidity, our team capability to rapidly and wisely adapt to change, is evolving this innovative concept into an entirely relevant 21st century transportation solution.  This is symbolic as the conception of Renovatio is the forged magnificence of a total physical devastation at the hand of a providential Act of God.  This amazing conceptual work is presently seasoning at exactly the right pace to assure that the outcome is the American masterpiece we all desire it to be.

The middle element, code named Resurrection, has been under intense consideration and scrutiny since March 2006.  The TI Fighter is the result.  From a solid foundation and core ideology, the next generation of fierce American street motorcycle design is interpreted. This effort is flourishing as I write.  It is as fire, there is violent surge and raucous pure energy.  The TI Fighter is beyond tough and honest strength; their exists sensual yang energy in a state of pure omnipotence.  Prepare to embrace a renewed pride in the sacred American principle of pure objective individuality.

Contempt for ingratiation; Immortal confederacy

01. Moral human equivalence exists;
02. Tribal theory diffuses this existence;
03. Imperial control requires collectivism;
04. Collectivism mandates tribalism;
05. Tribal cohesion implies familial, geographic, religious and racial bias;
06. Violence is exalted only from a collectivist/tribal perspective;
07. Principled individualists’ mandate anti-tribalism;
08. Individualists’ theory mandating consistent disciplined gentlemanly behavior condemns violence to vulgarity;
09. Violence transformed from wickedness to vulgarity loses all attractiveness;
10. The history of collectivism is ironic;
11. Collectivism always results in hypocrisy;
12. Honest damnation beats hypocritical exaltation.

These high level confederate truths seem utopian. However, a thoughtful and considered analysis of a room full of newborn babies effectively cleanses cynical doubt as to individual human essence and nature. We are each created to make a very personal yet indelible contribution to the overall wonderment of perpetual human existence. This contribution is the core of individual actualization.

The life force of Confederate motorcycle design actualization is transparent illumination of this core.

-mc