We had a grand time at the Nethercutt Collection yesterday. There were several collections within this collection, and two of our favorites were the vintage Rolls Royce and the vintage Cadillac collections. This post focuses on the Rolls Royces; we’ll post the Caddies a bit later.
All of the above photos were in the main hall of the Nethercutt Collection, where approximately 150 cars are on display. Across the street, in the showroom for the guided tour, we saw the Rolls that formerly belonged to Constance Bennett, an actress.
This is the greatest collection of vintage cars I’ve ever seen, and it’s all free. We had an earlier Nethercutt post from a prior visit, and you can see that one here.
Keep an eye on the ExhaustNotes blog; we’ll be posting the Nethercutt’s similar series of vintage Cadillacs in the next few days.
The shocking news is that they lasted 10 years. Motus Motorcycles announced they were shutting down and I mean right now. Which is a shame because I liked the looks of their sport tourer and it apparently had a great engine. Legendary moto-journalist Jack Lewis said he liked the bike and that’s good enough for me. The Motus sold for around 30,000 dollars. That undercut some other American-made motorcycles in the rarified cruiser category but was still a hefty chunk of change for a sport tourer.
The mighty Motus is no more.
I saw Motus at Daytona long time ago, before the production motorcycles were available. There were a couple of good-natured models standing around the bike. Closer to the ground and less aloof than the Ducati models, the girls wore short black skirts and belly-exposing, Motus logoed crop-top T-shirts. I joked around with them and they let me pose for for a photograph with one on each arm. The girls really didn’t know anything about the Motus but they were packing in the crowds. I thought it was damn good marketing.
Good natured and good looking, Joe Gresh is.
I never got to ride a Motus. I never asked the company for a loaner. They were getting plenty of coverage in the moto-press and I am not very ambitious. The V-four engine attracts a lot of attention because of its small size and torque. Loosely based on a Scat style engine, I predict a bright future selling the Motus engine as a stand-alone unit.
Old British sports car owners, guys tired of being run over in 4-cylinder Jeeps, perhaps racers in a spec-engine mini, sprint-car series are all potential customers for a reorganized Motus. Call the new company Motus Power Systems and sell bolt-in kits to repower various lightweight 4-wheelers.
Could taller, more aloof models have saved Motus? Hard to say. My advice to Motus is to forget about motorcycles. There are so many fantastic bikes available we don’t need another. The entire United States motorcycle industry would fit inside the tackle box of the recreational fishing industry. Motorcycles are such a tiny fraction, a statistical rounding error really, of the greater automotive economy that it’s not worth Motus’ trouble.
Hell, if you sold every motorcycle rider in America a Motus you’d still need to borrow money from me to get Uber fare home. The money simply isn’t there. So start work on the Jeep/Motus repower kit, boys. I’ll be first in line to mooch a test fitting in Brumby the YJ. I’ll even let you guys hire models to pose next to the old Jeep.
