Futuristic styling can be hit or miss. We’ve all seen our fair share of electric street bike concepts at this point that look like the bastard child of a suitcase full of batteries and a 7-year-old’s stash of spare Legos. Here at Electric Cycle Rider, it’s not often we fawn over one-off concepts, but my lord, have you seen the new Zero SR-X build?
Excuse us for the hot take, but this is one concept that looks ready, willing, and deserving of showroom floors. And guess what? We might actually get to see that become a reality.
That’s because the sexy slab of plug-in-plaything you see here is yet another collaboration between Zero Motorcycles and San Francisco’s Huge Design, the very same firm responsible for the Zero SM concept we now know as the production Zero FXE.
A quick glance at the Zero SM and FXE side-by-side should be all the explanation you need for our enthusiastic outlook. While the final production FXE model isn’t exactly a carbon copy of the SM concept, the amount of daylight between the two designs is minimal. Should Zero choose to make the most out of the new SR-X design language seen here, they stand to become the proud manufacturers of one of the best-looking sportbikes (electric or otherwise) on the planet.
What’s even better is that the new SR-X concept is built entirely on the bones of the proven SR platform (the SR/S, specifically), which means making this concept a reality isn’t particularly far-fetched. All the makings for a proper sport/streetfighter are sitting just below the immaculately sculpted bodywork, including the latest ZF75-10 motor and the intoxicating freight train of on-demand torque that comes with it.
As was the case with the Zero SM concept, Huge Design co-founder Bill Webb led the charge on the new Zero SR-X. Webb is a motorcyclist himself and no stranger to two-wheeled culture, having built his fair share of one-off customs in the past including this erection-inducing Honda CBR1000 that graced the pages of Bike EXIF back in 2014.
“The SR-X concept bike strives to hit a design sweet spot for the near future of electric motorcycles by combining clean lines and disciplined design-detailing with the aggressive stance and raw performance found in modern liter bikes. This Bike is an attempt to define a new sub-category for high performance electric, something between a streetfighter and a track bike. We wanted true sport riders to appreciate the subtle and balanced design approach – modern, futuristic, and clean without sacrificing the raw-performance look and overtly mechanical appeal of high-performance motorcycles.”
-Bill Webb, Huge Design Co-Founder
You can always tell when a bike is designed by someone who gets motorcycles, and there’s no denying Webb is the right person for the job. If the Zero SR-X concept is any sign of what Zero has in store for us in the near future, the next couple years are looking bright indeed…
