Zero collaborated with San Francisco’s Huge Design for this ultra-futuristic take on the brand’s SR/S electric sports tourer. Snub nose and snub tail with wide slots for headlights, his SR-X looks dropped out. Cyberpunk 2077.
We’ve been big fans of Zero’s work for a long time. When I rode his SR for the first time in 2014, my eyes immediately opened to the electric performance potential of his bike, and I opened my mouth to unleash a series of delightful blasphemy. When the first proper upgrade took place in 2019 with the SR/F naked and the fully faired SR/S, the performance improved significantly, delivering a blistering 190 Nm (140 lb-ft) of torque, 110 Peak horsepower (82 kW), range up to 201 miles (323 km) with optional ‘power tank’.
Of course looks are subjective, but SR/S was a pretty conservative looking horse. Fair enough. Fairing sport tourers with an upright riding position tend to appeal to middle-aged folks who are starting to take their eyes off the pipes and slippers. Anything attached, or whatever kids these days say in the sense of “good,” would seem very silly.
zero motorcycle
But Zero seems poised to take the platform in new and very exciting visual directions. It gave Bill Webb his SR/S in San Francisco Huge his design and drove him crazy.
The resulting SR/X Concept is a commanding front heavy with a trellis frame and motor visible behind the beveled lower fairing. The front end loses the grandpa screen and perhaps a bit of highway range along with it, but the end result is a modular and sleek look with the forks coming out of large gaps. It loses and gains a chunky underside inspired by the weird German street fighters of the time. There are some other nice silvery details like circular footpeg mounts and a kind of handle under the tank.
Underneath, the bike’s guts are mostly pristine, so this is far from a complete overhaul or bodykit. SR/X takes Zero to a hyper-futuristic place where everyone would be scratching their heads on the street if they didn’t have their noses buried in their smartphones.
zero motorcycle
According to Brian Wismann, Zero’s vice president of product development, the concept “exceeded expectations and points the way forward for our in-house design team.” A few mirrors, indicators and license plates might make it look funky and unfuturistic.
Webb’s work has previously influenced Zero’s production designs. The 2022 Zero FXE was developed from a concept by Huge Design with a consumer electronics theme to make it a better looking machine, so Zero tweaked his SR/X design so that at some point I hope it makes its way onto the streets relatively undisturbed. In my opinion, he ranks alongside the (non-production) Triumph TE-1 as one of the best looking electric bikes we’ve ever seen.
Watch the video below.
Zero SR-X concept
Source: Zero Motorcycle
