The Walter Wolf

Meeting one’s heroes is often ill advised. The Walter Wolf is one that actually lived up to expectations. Getting the opportunity to give this bike a full restoration was a bit of a guilty pleasure. I’d only ever seen pictures of this two-stroke rocket as a teen and even those where rare.

I was taken by the paint colours and in particular the gold wheels. Gold wheels! — which emerged a full decade before the Subaru WRX donned the gold kicks and blew everyone’s mind. The Walter Wolf connection to F1 racing shows in the selection of the RG500 to bear the Walter Wolf livery.

Getting the opportunity to give this bike a full restoration was a bit of a guilty pleasure. ”

The RG500 was a race-developed bike and it shows, from the technology of the engine’s exhaust valve system to the engine’s unique Four Square piston layout. It was designed with perfect weight distribution, sublime suspension and powerful brakes; all of this is important, because it’s packing 95 two-stroke smoking horses and they just want to pull your helmet off and scream in your ear. At only 339 lbs, your average gym junkie could bench press it.

The previous owner had been a motorcycling journalist and the bike used mostly as a track weapon—it bore the scars of a decent low-side slide, cracked and missing fairings, ground down parts, dents in the tank etc…challenge accepted.