Essay Munch Mammut 2000

Ice Age Ultrabike!

4 cylinders in line supercharged, 1,998 cm3, 260 hp, 295 Nm, 354 kg and 86,000 euros

There are motorcycles that have marked their time, by their power, their price or their extreme eccentricity. The Munch Mammut is one of those motorcycles and today we celebrate its birthday.

Because it was in 2001, exactly 20 years ago, that the first of the eight customer versions of the Münch Mammut 2000, the most powerful, the most expensive and certainly the most extreme "production" motorcycle of the era of excess of the new millennium, was delivered to its wealthy owner. At the time, well before the 2008 crisis, when brands were competing on the market for choppers and Serie Oro cars at more than $50,000, the German Thomas Petsch went further than everyone else with his missile at two-liter turbocharged two-wheeler delivering 260 hp (191 kW) and costing a dizzying sum compared to the models of the time: 86,000 euros.

Petsch presented the Münch Mammut 2000 to the public at the Intermot trade fair in 2000. He then received 78 orders from customers all over the world, mainly in Germany, Japan, the United States and Switzerland.

The entrepreneur has indeed acquired the rights to the name of Friel Münch, the man who built 478 NSU motor vehicles from 1966 until his tragic stroke in 1991. The brand thus remains German, even if the new single-seater sports car is designed and manufactured in Poland before being assembled in Germany. It keeps on the other hand what made its history, a huge consumption and excesses of engineering. And he then plans to manufacture 250, at the rate of one motorcycle per week.

The day before I left for Münch Motorradfabrik's base for the city of Würzburg, nestled on the banks of the River Main, to pilot one of the first pre-production Mammuts that Petsch and his team had built, Thomas had added a name more to this list with its first potential Mrs. Münch. She was a New York lawyer who presumably intended to use her supercharged two-wheeler to drive down 5th Avenue to court and give the NYPD something to worry about other than organized crime and the politics of zero tolerance...

Most of the components were manufactured in Poland before being shipped to Germany for assembly at the Sachs factory in Nuremberg using labor and facilities hired from Münch. The price of 86,000 euros then included local VAT (16%) and air freight for any country in the world. Each buyer then received a personal access code to a webcam with which he could watch the progress of his personal Mammut live. It was not only the most expensive motorcycle of the time, but also the most exclusive, the most powerful, the most torquey, the most massive and - well, the most EVERYTHING, quite simply!

Discovery

If the prototype of the Mammut 2000 was launched at Intermot 2000, the number does not refer to its vintage, but to the capacity of its 4-cylinder in-line engine with double overhead camshaft and 16 valves. , developed entirely in-house by Münch and not adapted from an existing automobile engine as was the case for the Mammoth 1200 of the last century.

To create this liquid-cooled 1,998cc engine, Petsch took a Cosworth DOHC 16-valve cylinder head originally developed for the Opel Calibra, adapted it for use on a motorcycle and then fine-tuned the rest of the crankcase. wet four-cylinder.

The 86x86 engine has aluminum cylinders and a magnesium crankcase containing 5 liters of lubricant with a plain bearing crankshaft, Hoeckle connecting rods and Mahle forged pistons offering a low compression ratio of 9:1. The direct belt drive is located to the right of the two shafts. Engine operation is monitored by a Bosch Motoronic control unit.

The resulting performance is impressive with no less than 260 horsepower at 5,650 rpm (for a maximum speed of 8,500 rpm and a torque of 295 Nm reached from 3,500 rpm. The set is completed by the installation a 6-speed gearbox with a 13-plate wet clutch using ceramic linings to reduce friction.

The chassis in which the megamotor sits features a conventional double-cradle chrome-molybdenum steel design. The cast-aluminum swingarm operates motorcycle-developed Öhlins dampers, mounted horizontally below the engine and operating conventionally in compression with a link matched to the Swedish company's 43mm inverted fork.

Spiegler 320mm cast iron discs and Spiegler four-pad, eight-piston calipers are found up front, while a 280mm rotor is installed at the rear with a 4-piston floating caliper. The standard Bridgestone tires are mounted on 17-inch forged aluminum rims with a wide 200/50ZR17 behind to ensure good transmission of power to the ground.

The wheelbase is 1,540mm long and the steering geometry is very open with a caster angle of 28° and a trail of 115mm which does honor to the bike's name.

Cost was obviously not a concern in the production of this bike, so was Thomas Petsch happy with the fruits of his hard work and substantial investment?

In the saddle

I've ridden some pretty intimidating motorcycles in my day. But I admit I was more than impressed when I saw for the first time the Mammut 2000 aboard which I was going to spend several days with Thomas Petsch on his own TTS 1200 from 1969. See the Mammut under the Spring sunshine in front of Münch HQ was beyond bewildering, with the light flickering on his headlight beam like a wolf's eye as the engine warmed up gently. The noise emanating from the exhaust silencer placed under the seat sounded like that of a car, which suddenly made me realize that the car I had driven the day before to London airport had a turbo engine two-liter with specifications similar to those of the bike I came to test. Only, this motorcycle developed 45 horsepower more than the car, weighed less than half its weight and, instead of four-wheel drive, delivered all its power to the ground through a single Bridgestone 200 rear tire. Hmmm, definitely intimidating...

Climbing aboard the Mammut only reinforced this impression. The riding position is undoubtedly the biggest obstacle to overcome in order to adapt to the Münch. It's really very strange! The extreme width of the massive 1998cc transverse 4-cylinder in-line engine requires the footpegs to be placed very far back and, although this means the left leg avoids the engine, the driven camshaft housing by strap comes into contact with the upper part of the right leg. This results in a position with the legs apart, the improbability of which is accentuated by the fact that the feet are very far behind. It's just as well that there is no passenger seat, because he or she would have nowhere to put their feet. Either way, "it's a man's bike, designed to travel alone and fast," as Petsch put it. Absolutely...

Trial

In fact, despite the saddle's fairly hard padding, I eventually got used to the semi-reclined riding position quickly, especially since it's quite aerodynamic at the very high speeds the Münch is capable of, even though it is limited to 250 km/h in accordance with German automotive industry practices. By adjusting the ECU to remove this clamping, the top speed would reach, according to its designer, 275 km/h before the switch was triggered at 6,800 rpm. Even at 230 km/h I was able to wring the Mammut completely legally on a stretch of motorway, the wide one-piece handlebars with their set back grips offer a fairly comfortable position with plenty of leverage, a desirable point to not not to say necessary given the bike's slender steering geometry with the 43 mm Öhlins inverted fork open at 28° with 115 mm of trail and a long wheelbase of 1,540 mm. But it also offers something to cling to when twisting the throttle grip from low revs and discovering the addictive thrill of having such power at your fingertips. It sends heavy!

Just like on a turbo car, the Münch's trick is to follow the torque curve and try to load the throttle in a way that keeps the turbo going all the time, at least on partial boost, in order to reduce the lag. The surprisingly light clutch makes it possible to exit directly from engine idle to 1,000 rpm, the use of the left hand is thus no more solicited than on a contemporary Ducati. On the other hand, maneuvering in tight spaces is not its strong point and you have to be sure to be able to support the weight of the motorcycle with your leg during maneuvers, otherwise it tips over and, in addition to potential damage , you are sure to break your leg when you fall on it!

The engine accepts a full throttle opening without traces of transmission from 1,200 rpm, after which you feel the revs rise relatively gently to just under 3,000 rpm. That's when the turbo kicks in and Wheeee!!! Hang on! There's a massive, irresistible surge of power and torque that amps up the excitement and quickly pushes up a gear to renew the experience. It's not a brutal kick in the ass when the turbo kicks in, but a relentless, alluring thrust. What is surprising is that the Stack dashboard does not include any turbo gauge, an essential element and not only for bragging. As with a turbo car, the best way to ride this bike is not to rev it straight up into the revs, but to take advantage of the fact that there are at least two gears too many in the six-speed transmission, to shift just after peak torque at around 4,500 rpm and follow that huge torque curve that propels you towards your goal at what feels like the speed of sound.

Despite all that huge torque peaking at 295Nm at 3,500rpm, the gearshift action remains surprisingly good and there's never a need to use the clutch for upshifts except between 1st and 1st. 2nd where a dull noise is heard when passing through neutral, which is also very difficult to find at rest when desired. At least the green light from neutral doesn't lie.

There's a slight hiss from the turbo at low revs, matched by a dull whine from the 4-cylinder engine, but that quickly subsides as the revs rise. I'm too busy hanging on anyway to worry about the effects of noise: it's a very fast bike!

But also soft: I am convinced after having piloted it that it had to integrate a counterweight on the engine. But Petsch insisted that was not the case - his engineers had correctly calculated the engine's balance factor. This adds to the feeling of excellence one gets when riding the Münch, the build quality, even on this pre-production model, is superlative and it also seems very well built. The only cheap-looking part is the water radiator, which is bound to come from a car and especially in contrast to the intermediate radiator mounted below, a nice curved silver racing RAD from KTM or Behr would have looked more harmonious. The only mechanical downside is the noise of the upper drive chain slamming against the alloy case, which is very irritating at slow speeds, but gradually disappears from your attention span as it shifts to speed !

It was after talking to riders from earlier Mammut prototypes that the R&D team obviously worked hard to smooth out power delivery and reduce turbo lag, as well as smooth out what was apparently a very hard clutch. Okay, this is still a bike that requires quite a bit of muscle, if only because at 354kg dry it's very heavy, with a good portion of the weight very high, including the fuel. But thanks to intelligent mapping of the Bosch Motronic engine management system, the way the power is delivered and the response of the turbocharger - while inevitably displaying a slight lag - are completely controllable and once one begins to understand how to use this motorbike, it turns out to be almost easy.

The Bridgestone rear doesn't buck under all the torque of such a heavy and powerful bike and it delivers power well, not stalling when the extra thrust kicks in as the turbo reaches a peak of 0.9 bar . That's not to say it wouldn't be on the corner when it happens, any more than on any other powerful motorcycle, but the cure for it lies in your right hand and the fact that the Throttle response being controllable also makes this quite easy to accomplish. So if you want to go for a surface-to-surface missile imitation, it can also accelerate incredibly fast once one is upright and in a straight line. Rocketman!

Braking

But while the Mammut's acceleration is certainly impressive, it's never explosive, probably because all that weight plays a part. This is one of the reasons why extending chain life was such a concern and also why doing a wheelie on such a long and heavy bike is nearly impossible. But by definition it also takes a while to stop and here the eight-piston calipers gripping the two 320mm Spiegler front discs do their job really well with good feeling and bite.

Cycle part

The handling is amazing for such a big, long and heavy bike. Although it never occurs to him to call it nimble, the Mammut does better than its name suggests in delivering acceptable changes of direction. Thanks to this long wheelbase and the 51/49% distribution of all those kilos, the Münch also proves to be very stable around 160 km/h, even on bumpy roads where the total weight helps to stay well planted on the asphalt. with no wobbles or jerks, but with a very quiet, neutral and predictable chassis response. Surprising ! Top marks here go to the fully adjustable Öhlins suspension at both ends. Despite the limited 65mm travel of the two rear shocks, the damping quality is quite good and you can maintain cornering speed much better than I expected. While ground clearance is inevitably limited, this isn't a bike made just for the straights, although that's obviously the best part!

Conclusion

The Mammut 2000 is a dynamic, impressive and challenging machine and much more than a motorcycle than I had anticipated. However, driving at 200 km/h with the tachometer displaying 4,500 rpm, there is a feeling of latent power, always ready to spring up at the slightest request. Handling at these speeds is impressive by any standard, especially in terms of 2-wheelers. The last turbo bike I had ridden at the time was an Egli-Kawasaki 1200, which was much more explosive, but not as fast or as powerful. Eventually, the Mammut looks more like a caged panther than a woolly Ice Age elephant, waiting to emerge from the shadows silently in pursuit of its prey.

Given that around 80 customers had come forward to buy a Mammut 2000, what about a less expensive smaller capacity model in the future, which would have allowed Münch to tackle a more big deal, I asked Thomas Petsch.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. Thomas Petsch's pragmatic approach to this hobby that had gotten out of control led him to end production in mid-2002. Only eight motorcycles were then built at Sachs in Nuremberg and delivered to customers for simple and good reason that, even at this high price, he made no profit, the manufacturing costs exceeding the selling price. After unsuccessfully trying to find a business partner, he kept his promise to his wife and ended the project, leaving the 15 motorcycles built by his company as a testament to his enthusiasm after he died on July 17, 2017 at just 57. years. The Münch brand was sold by his family in 2019 to Markus Pohl who is working on the manufacture of new copies from the original parts.

Strong points

Weak points

The technical sheet of the Münch Mammut 2000