There’s so much weird and cool stuff out there to look it in the world of BangShifty vehicles. My urge is to own virtually all of it but a few things like finances and a wife that refuses to allow our hose to look like a self service salvage yard. Undaunted, I decided to ask for tha Kettenkrad motorcycle tank thing for Christmas. I was to own neat stuff. Stuff that won’t ever be rolling into a local cruise night. We’ve shown you lots of neat vehicles in the past and here’s one more: the German Kettenkrad, or as we like to call it, the doomsday motorcycle. This is what you get when you cross a tank with a trike.
The vehicle was originally intended to be a light tractor for troops to use for pulling cannons or other guns through tough terrain. Its major design feature was that it would fit in the cargo hold of a plane and could be transported with relative ease and dropped into remote locations.
You’re wondering how the guy driving or riding this thing steered and we wondered the same thing until we learned that the handle bars were linked into the track brakes and moving the bars would engage the brake on the desired side, causing the vehicle to steer. That’s some good old fashioned German engineering there. Like all things German engineered, it is probably unnecessarily complex and prone to failure at the most inopportune times (in a war, any time is an inopportune time), but the concept is totally cool.
NSU built the Kettenkrads and they were powered by a water-cooled, 1.4 liter Opel four banger. The motor made 70 hp and was able to move the tank/trike with aplomb as it could go more than 40 mph. It had three forward speeds, reverse, and a normal single-plate clutch. It weighed in at 3,400 pounds. Rolling along on top of this little monster at 40mph must have been quite a ride. We can only imagine what stopping the machine must have been like in an emergency situation at those speeds. Bailing off may have been the safer option over a panic stop.
The machine could climb great angles and was used pretty extensively on the eastern front of WWII. Through the course of their production, which ran even after the war ended (for use on farms), more than 8,000 were produced.
We want one bad.
It almost seems that the front wheel is there to keep the thing from going into an endo during a hard stop. I wonder haw many in any shape exist today.
There’s one of these on display at Motorcyclepedia in Newburgh NY. Checked it out this summer, they’re really cool.
I’ve seen a few here and there at military museums and a couple private collectors. These things would definitely move better on the muddy roads than any motorcycle. I think they could haul smaller cannons and anti tanks guns with ease.
Always wondered what use the front tire had beyond just ease of parts. Never figured it would turn a tracked vehicle.
I would like one of these for a yard tractor. Cook up a PTO set up for it. Although, the tracks would probably tear up the lawn.
Cool piece of inguinity probally on the cutting edge of its time unlike most anything seen a well ballanced peice
Check with Bud Melby in Ravensdale WA. He’s had a nice restored one for years.