It’s a motorcycle! It’s a camera! It’s … a motorcycle made of cameras?

By Bill Roberson March 29, 2014

The premise almost reads like a joke: A company contacts a well-known custom motorcycle builder and asks him to build, of all things, a security camera.

He’s given free reign to do anything he wants, and the end result is perhaps not as shocking as what you might expect: an insanely cool motorcycle – with four security cameras built in.

That’s how things played out when one “Mr. Kaku” of Japan Security System Co. contacted metallurgic wizard Chicara Nagata, whose custom-built motorcycles make most other high-end custom-built motorcycles look like high school auto-shop projects that got a C+.

In an email to the folks at the Megadeluxe website, Chicara (he typically goes by just the one name), said he was contacted by the security firm to design the camera in time for a big convention in early March. After racking his brain as to how he might make the camera system low-profile or otherwise unique, he bailed on that angle and returned to what he knew: two wheelers.

1966 Little Honda P25CA6 engine macro

1966 Little Honda P25CA6 rear macro

The result is a minimalist but drool-worthy motorcycle powered by a tiny 49cc Honda gas engine from 1966 and blended with cutting-edge consumer surveillance technology from Sony. Where headlights and taillights should be, Chicara placed a pair of 2-megapixel HD Sony security cameras with night-vision LED emitters. A small cross brace near the seat holds another pair of cameras, giving the rolling spyworks essentially a 360-degree field of view.

While certainly unique, the NSA-worthy Honda does echo the designs of Vanmoof and some other cutting edge bicycle designers. Tech details are scarce (Wi-Fi? Bluetooth? NFC? Premix?) but suffice to say, the project could likely capture a record amount of facial recognition data from mesmerized onlookers, so it very well may be the best idea ever for a security system.

“This work is suitable to be installed in museums, entry hall of a building, hotel lobby and stores, etc. Of course, this can run swiftly in town!” Chicara said in his email to Megadeluxe.

While Mr. Kaku may not have been expecting a camera/motorcycle hybrid (or maybe he was, who knows), we’ll just assume Japan Security System’s booth was the hit of the show.

(Images © Megadeluxe)

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