You can’t look at this bike without being immediately drawn to those impressive wheels that not only look like they’re made of wood, but actually are. This is not as crazy as it sounds when you think back to early wagon and car wheels that were made of hardwood. The choice of ash for the ten-spoke wheels melds well with the brass fittings to the 20” rims. Integral to the period look of the wheels are a set of drum brakes well hidden by Sapka and linked together by a foot operated Mercedes master cylinder. Replica Firestone 4.75×20 car tires add their own special touch with a patina-ed whitewall on one side and a blackwall on the other giving a totally different look right and left that somehow doesn’t look out of place.

Sapka is not afraid to challenge convention wherever he can. “I tried to use such industrial solutions, materials, and design elements that already existed at the end of the 19th century,” says Sapka. Such is the case with the front suspension, which is quite unlike anything else you’re likely to run into. The beautifully curved, raked-out single fork leg compliments the long arch of the frame’s top tube, which is also part of the fork’s air suspension along with the air chamber perched where a headlight often sits. With the engine running, “You turn on the air compressor by turning the faucet over the right-side camshaft cover,” says Sapka, which not only fills the air chamber, but the top tube as well. As you can see in the pictures, the bike frame sits directly on the ground when not running, apparently Sapka doesn’t trust kickstands. The frame itself is a gorgeous thing and the unfinished bike pictures on Sapka’s website really make it easy to see why he connects so well with 19th Century design. There’s no plenum chamber/compressor trickery out back, just a simple single-sided rigid rear end featuring more baroque curves that gives this custom the look of an antique contraption instead of a machine built in the heyday of space travel.

Framed nicely by the top tubes is a gas tank which seems to float in that negative space while providing the fuel to the 1941 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead engine which is just about old enough at 67 to turn time back all by itself. As for why he chose it, Sapka says, “The H-D Knucklehead is the most beautiful V-twin engine ever made and this was the only one in Hungary.” After a full rebuild to stock specs, the 74” Knuckle was ready to pop in the frame, but as usual, Sapka had to put his own touch on the drivetrain. The 1920’s sci-fi twin exit exhaust was one touch, but the method of starting is even stranger by current standards. How about hand cranking? That’s not a shifter on the left side and Sapka says, “You pull out the telescopic starter arm on the left and start the engine by yanking the arm backwards.” Shades of a hand cranking a Model T, now that’s going back in time. There’s just no way that this imaginative and talented Hungarian builder would stop there, though, and he goes one step further into the future by incorporating an automatic transmission of undisclosed origin except for having three speeds and hinting it may have reverse. The shifter juts up on the right topped with a large crystal knob and attached near the bottom of the shifter arm is a round brass magnifying glass to show you what gear you’re in from the stamping on the top of the case. Final drive is surprisingly not by a leather belt, but a semi-modern, semi-antique chain. Engine oil is carried in the swept back tank under the engine while tranny fluid is contained in the ribbed tank under the aft end of the fuel tank.

The use of wood not only extends to the wheels, but to the starter handle and the handlebar grips which sit cleanly on the unadorned bars. Instrumentation consists of an air pressure gauge, a compass, and a vintage wind-up pocket watch mounted on the steering neck. Time travel requires little instrumentation apparently and happens so quickly that seating, made out of an old shovel, is not of the utmost importance too.

Given a choice of the original H.G. Wells’ time machine or this 2007 AMD European Championship winning machine, I think the late Rod Taylor would have had a lot more fun riding this time machine into the future, I know I would.