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I'm curious about a larger (around 500-600cc) fuel efficient streamliner as well. I spoke briefly with Mr. Vetter about this at Vintage Days and he said the only reason you need a bike this large was if you wanted to set Bonneville speed records with your 'liner. He strongly believes all you need is 16 HP.
I asked him because I remember reading a story back in the mid-'80's where a fellow was questioning the need to run a 200/250cc motor and believed a 500-600cc thumper could achieve about the same mileage but still have power in reserve for hills, passing, etc. I even bought a stolen & recovered KLR-600 from an insurance company that I was going to experiment with but at the time was so wrapped up in competition hillclimbing that I never found time to do it and sold the bike. I think it would have made a great starting point since the subframe on that particular bike unbolted making it easy to redo it with a lower seat height and feet-forward riding position.
I for one would be very interested in seeing how a fully streamlined Versys or KLR-650 might do mileage and performance-wise. A fully streamlined Gurney Alligator would be interesting as well. I love the idea of making do with less, i. e. building a super fuel efficient machine that uses a 16 HP motor but in the real world you need the power to make passes on two-lane roads going into a headwind.
Any of you engineer types care to do some math work and determine if a 650 class single or twin is efficient enough to achieve 100 MPG or more with proper streamlining in real-world riding conditions?
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