Abandon All Hope A Futuristic Motorcycle From Argentina

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Having a regular stream of customer work is a blessing and a curse. Sure, it puts food on the table—but it also usually means working to a brief and a deadline. And that can get pretty frustrating when you’re someone with an over-active imagination.
Patricio Castelli knows this hustle all too well. He’s based in Argentina, where he specializes in shaping aluminum for motorcycle and car projects. But his clients never commission truly radical stuff, so he occasionally builds something outrageous for his own delight.

And if you’re wondering just how outrageous it gets, how about an aluminum-clad scoot that looks like it rolled out of a 1950s sci-fi epic?
“The concept that surrounds the bike,” Patricio tells us, “is the iconography of the space exploration of the 40s and 50s science fiction. I tried to respect those guidelines as the central axis of all the construction.”

Despite its bizarro appearance, this futuristic motorcycle is, in fact, fully functional. (Without lights it’s not street legal though.) Patricio started with a Zanella ZB 125—an Argentinian-made scooter that’s sort of a Honda Biz clone.
We originally assumed that he’d heavily modified the chassis and then simply wrapped it aluminum, but that’s not the case at all. All that’s really left of the Zanella is its 125 cc motor and automatic transmission.

Working from sketches, technical drawings and even 3D renders, Patricio built the rest of his creation from the ground up.
Hiding inside the motorcycle’s primary fuselage is a series of steel plates that form a subframe—like a full scale, higher-grade Meccano set. Everything attaches to this structure; the motor, electronics, a custom-built fuel tank and the front steering system.

That frontal arrangement in itself is hard to wrap your head around. From what we can tell, it’s almost like a hub-centered steering setup, with a series of arms connecting the handlebars to the sing-sided front swing arm, and ultimately the front hub.
The swing arm’s working bits are wrapped in aluminum—so at a glance, it doesn’t look like it’ll steer at all.

Patricio’s employed this sort of stealthy craftsmanship throughout the build. For the throttle, he built an ATV-style thumb lever under the right handlebar wing. And if you look closely, there’s a sneaky drum brake out back too.
All this clever engineering is matched with equally impressive bodywork. Everything’s been formed from aluminum sheeting, riveted together with a distinct aeronautical feel. (If you peak inside the handlebar structure, it’s not dissimilar to a airplane wing.)

Explore the motorcycle enough, and you’ll spot neat little considerations everywhere—like a scoop to direct air to the motor, and a sneaky exhaust vent on the right side of the rear arm. Everything’s custom, right down to the foot controls and 19” aluminum wheel discs.
There’s small round hatch on the left that flips open to reveal the kill switch and start button. And there’sa small cut out to access the fuel tap, with the actual filler cap sitting closer to the rear wheel.

Patricio’s dubbed his creation ‘Abandonen Toda Esperanza’—which translates to ‘Abandon All Hope,’ taken straight out of Dante’s Inferno. He tells us that’s what’s written above his workshop door, but we’re pretty sure it refers to the bike’s riding position.
It’s been a hit too, and has already taken top honors in a couple of Argentinian custom shows.

Maybe this sci-fi oddity isn’t particularly comfortable—or even remotely practical—but that’s irrelevant. It’s beautifully formed and full of imaginative solutions to problems we don’t have.
And if we can’t let our imaginations run amok once in a while, what’s the point?
Castelli AFF Facebook | Instagram | Images by Juan Paviolo



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