7th November

Yes, you can draw a line joining a 1973 classic and a 2024 bike of the future

Iain Macauley, Automotive Journalist, talks us through his most recent visit to see Can-Ams new electric motorcycle range which promises to be ‘retro inspired’.

You'd be forgiven for being cynical when in the first paragraph of a new motorcycle launch press release the words "retro inspired" appear - until you meet the people tasked with making something decades old relevant to something cutting edge.

Can-Am motorcycles haven't been seen in showrooms since 1987, launched in 1973 by the - you guessed it - Canadian manufacturer (with factories in the US). Its parent company, Bombardier, was founded in the 1920s, and initially made "snow utility vehicles". Can-Am bikes back then were powerful Rotax-engined two strokes.

So when, as part of the launch of Can-Am's new electric motorcycle range, I was invited to visit the Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) design centre to hear about retro-inspiration, there was a bit of a cynic harrumphing in the back of my mind.

Until I'd been there about 30 seconds....

2025 Can Am Origin Rider Standing Tree Vegetation And Rock Backdrop

You'd probably expect me to say I'd been Business Class-ed off to Canada for a junket around a gin palace full of silent and frowning creatives dabbling with out-there computer-based design programmes, and smart-ass AI.

But, no: BRP's European design centre, led by a Richard-Gere-alike Nicolas Deluy, is nestled in the peaceful and wooded foothills of the mountains north west of Antibes, in France. Outside, on a terrace in front of the design office, were two Can-Am electric motorcycle prototypes - and a UK-sourced M-reg 1973 Can-Am 175 ISDT. There's probably Can-Am trail bike enthusiasts out there been searching for that bike for years...

It was the inspiration, sure enough, for the trail version of the new Can-Am - the Origin - and provided cues for the design of the road bike, the Pulse.

You don't get much closer for genuine inspiration than being able to overlay a side-on view of the Origin (which genuinely felt pretty competent off-road) upon a side-on view of the 1973 machine. There's a lot of things in the same if not very similar relative places, crucially things like wheels and handlebars.

But you also get an insight into how designers connect decades-old design with brand new - and completely unrelated, construction-wise - machines.

Can Am Electric Prototype On A Modern Buildings Balcony

The 1973 bike had been a very and ever-present reference point for walk-around studies by the team, which led to initial pencil-drawn sketches, before moving on to designers' screens, then into a shuttered "no entry to unauthorised personnel" workshop where models and prototypes are created. You should have seen the look on the modeller's face when she opened the door just as I was looking towards it...

Everything hangs around the original 1973 Can-Am tank design. While some elements of the Pulse and Origin clearly feature that "irregular pentagon" shape and logo - the Pulse's "tank" for one (actually an electrical gubbins cover) - both bikes feature variations upon that shape throughout which you do actually pick up.

Not necessarily a cue for you to say, pub-quiz-expert-like, "ah, that looks just like a 1973 Can-Am tank" - it's more like an inspiration to incorporate a shape that is exclusive to Can-Am's motorcycle history. After all, we usually want a bike that looks different  and distinctive from the rest.

By all accounts, those early Can-Ams were, well, exciting rides: peaky and powerful two-strokes, limited suspension travel. Your initial thoughts are that a tech-laden electric motorcycle will never have that kind of challenging character - current-day health & safety or construction & use authorities will see to that - but, actually, both new Can-Ams do in their own way.

2025 Can Am Origin Rider Standing Mountain Backdrop

There's no two-stroke ring-ding-a-ding, but if you're following an  off-road Origin and the rider nails the throttle, not only does it take off like a Honda 750 Four, it also sounds like it.

Given it's a largely silent motor, other than a purposeful whine when cracking on - and these bikes have serious pace - it took me a while to work it out, but it's the tyres: under hard acceleration the Origin's knobblies make a sound like a distant four cylinder fossil-fuelled bike with a sports exhaust.

Do they feel anything like a retro 1970s two-stroke off-roader? Absolutely not.

Are they future classics? Well, back in the 1970s did we expect near-disposable two-strokes to ever gain that classic status...?