Special Feature: 2009 Confederate Wraith

The name may be another word for "ghost," but this Confederate is no apparition. Just ask your eardrums...

By Mark Hoyer | Photos by Jeff Allen

September 2009

Photos: 2009 Confederate Wraith >>

Confederate Motorcycles deserves credit for a lot of things. Surviving is one of them. The company has over the years gone on hiatus for both financial reasons and "Wrath of God" reasons, the latter when Hurricane Katrina flattened its former New Orleans headquarters in 2005. It also deserves credit for designing almost ceaselessly interesting motorcycles, which probably is the real reason Confederate deserves credit: No motorcycle maker has gotten so much press and built so few motorcycles.

Since company principal Matt Chambers first set up shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1991, Confederate has built and delivered all of an estimated 640 units. Over that time, the machines have evolved quite a lot while staying true to the initial vision of an American-style cruiser with a performance edge. Still, looking back at our May, 2000, road test of the America GT, that bike's design seems almost quaint in comparison to the freely thought, high industrial art of the Wraith, sort of like comparing the special effects of the first Star Wars movie with those of the last. In fact, the Wraith does look a bit like the bike you would ride to the infamous Mos Eisley Cantina if Star Wars IV had a Mad Max-inspired segment.

I was the man who crawled into the Confederate van in 2004 when Chambers and original Wraith designer J.T. Nesbitt brought the concept bike to our office to show it to us for the first time. Much has changed since that XR1000-powered, alloy-backboned Wraith first saw our photo studio ("Cutting Edge," CW, April, 2004). But the essential background, the Alexander Calder-inspired "kinetic sculpture" core that Nesbitt — who elected to stay in New Orleans post-Katrina rather than move to Birmingham, Alabama, with the company — was after not only survives, but flourishes in its refinement and execution as an actual working motorcycle.

This time around, the now-in-production Wraith was delivered by current designer Ed Jacobs and Paul Adams, Confederate's roaming sales/marketing/product support man.

Jacobs has been with the company since 2005 and is largely responsible for the Wraith's current producibility and functionality. He is enthused about design projects currently in process for future models and explained the fundamental approach at Confederate.

"The core idea is Honesty," he says. "That is, the structure becomes an embodiment of the idea. This is a naked bike, heart on its sleeve, with a skeletal, elemental ethos that is in all our bikes. Everything is what it is."
If nothing else, the freedom this thinking represents is a rare opportunity for a motorcycle designer. In the mass-production, corporate environment of major manufacturing, the concerns faced by a designer are heavily influenced by many non-artful factors, and decisions can be influenced by — no lie — a half-cent difference in parts cost. Confederate is certainly trying to operate as a business, but the boundaries are far wider because of the low production and, especially, the Wraith's $92,500 MSRP. For that kind of money, it has to stand out!

As an aesthetic exercise, the Wraith — as with past Confederates — really can't be qualified as "pretty." The description I used for the riding impression of the 2000 Hellcat also applies here: "The bike looks sinister, purposeful and weapon-like, sort of the .357 Magnum of two-wheelers." Senior Editor Paul Dean looked at the Wraith and commented that he didn't think he'd ever seen a more illegal, less practical "production" motorcycle, but that he just couldn't stop looking at it and taking in all the cool details. The major parts, such as the winged carbon-fiber backbone frame and its alloy engine-mounting plates, engage the eye with their contours and material contrast. The finer bits — like the ISR clutch and brake controls, the aluminum linkages in the c-f girder fork and the detailing on the carbureted JIMS 120-cubic-inch Twin Cam-style counterbalanced engine and proprietary Confederate "short" primary drive/gearbox — carry the industrial edge to a finer level.

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