Motorcycles

Droog gets all post-apocalyptic with its latest electric streetfighter

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Blackout discs on the rims look good and probably add a little to the aeros
Droog Moto
Blackout discs on the rims look good and probably add a little to the aeros
Droog Moto
The slash-cut LEDs in the front race plate are the signature of this bike
Droog Moto
Stubby single-seat tail unit
Droog Moto
A headlight mounted behind the forks does a great job of illuminating the front tire, and while it's pretty good looking, it does look like it'll block the light from the road a bit
Droog Moto
The slash-cut lighting in that front race plate is a neat visual touch
Droog Moto
A high-rate fast charger is included
Droog Moto
The "distressed look" doesn't really hold up in bright light
Droog Moto
The standard Zero S dash sits on top of the "tank"
Droog Moto
Razor-thin taillights
Droog Moto
Chunky Bridgestone soft road tires complete the post-apocalyptic look
Droog Moto
Spunky Brembo master cylinder
Droog Moto
It's a nicer look than a standard Zero S, but for an extra US$29,000?
Droog Moto
View gallery - 12 images

This Washington-based company will build you a murdered-out, snub-nosed electric brawler of a motorcycle, at a fantastical price. It'd be the perfect commuter for a post-apocalyptic hellscape, provided that hellscape still has power points to plug into.

The E-Fighter V2 becomes the fourth bespoke ratfighter in the Droog catalogue, which now includes two combustion bikes and two electrics. The first Droog E-Fighter took the excellent Zero FXS electric supermoto and gave it a budget Batman makeover, and the new E-Fighter V2 takes things up a notch by moving to the Zero S as a base platform.

That presumably gives this thing some 46 horsepower and 78 lb-ft (106 Nm) of torque, good for top speeds around 98 mph (158 km/h) and reasonably brisk acceleration. The battery pack on the Zero S is the 7.2 kWh, which can take you some 89 miles (143 km) around the city at low speeds, or about 45 miles (72 km) down the highway.

Droog has stripped it to the bare bones and applied a full cosmetic makeover. The tail's chopped into a stubby single seat unit, the "tank" has been replaces with a nasty-looking angular metal confection, and the friendly Zero headlight has been binned for a dystopian sci-fi version of a flat race plate, with LED-lit slashes in it and the actual headlight hidden back in the chest of the bike behind the forks and the barely-there front fender.

It's a nicer look than a standard Zero S, but for an extra US$29,000?
Droog Moto

Incidentally, Droog has left the mount points for the Zero front fender on the bottoms of the forks if you wanna actually not get sprayed in the face with water and stones as you ride. Those fashionably chunky Bridgestone soft-road tires on their blacked-out solid-look rims are going to fling some crud, and the Droog front fender offers g-string levels of coverage.

The standard Zero dash is embedded in the top of the tank, and all the custom metal parts are sanded to a distressed-look finish as if it's been pre-dragged along the ground. Droog says it's "upgraded" the suspension on both ends, including some facility for adjustment. The bike runs a single mirror and brake lever, a fancy-looking Brembo master cylinder and some custom grips and bar-end indicators.

You can get yourself a custom-built Droog E-Fighter V2 if you're willing to part with a pretty wild US$40,000 base model price tag, on top of which you can customize things further. The Zero S donor bike underneath all the tough guy stuff is now retailing for US$11,000 before any incentives are applied, so if you see one of these on the road, you can know its owner coughed up US$29 grand just to look special.

A headlight mounted behind the forks does a great job of illuminating the front tire, and while it's pretty good looking, it does look like it'll block the light from the road a bit
Droog Moto

And that makes this, for me, a pretty hard bike to get very excited about. Surely for 40 grand, the least you could do would be to build it on the much gruntier Zero SR platform, or better still, the stomping SR/F. The S is a fine little commuter and good fun in its own right, but its US$11K pricetag is already a stumbling block for many buyers.

This is a nutty amount to pay for something with such a deliberately chopped-up and brutalized look. It's all a bit Derelicte on wheels to me; I love me a good rattle-can ratfighter, but paying Panigale V4 R money for something that looks like a slightly more refined version of what your friend did with his crashed Fireblade is madness.

Check out a video below.

Source: Droog Moto

View gallery - 12 images
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8 comments
WB
wow their commercial has a driver who wears a suit with EXPOSED knees... I don't even know where to start who though that was a cool idea.. I mean wtf. I don't think it can get any more lame than that! ON top of paying 3x more just to look different... wow.. just wow!
robertswww
The E-Fighter V2 looks cool, but not $40 grand cool. Loz, I always love your writing style, case in point... "the Droog front fender offers g-string levels of coverage."
Username
There's probably a reason why every other bike company doesn't put the headlight behind the wheel!
DaveWesely
Nice review Loz. I do find it interesting that we think electricity would be in short supply in an apocalyptic world. "It'd be the perfect commuter for a post-apocalyptic hellscape, provided that hellscape still has power points to plug into." Granted, this was written tongue in cheek. It just seems odd that we would assume gas and oil would still be readily available in a society with broken commerce and limited supplies.
rbolman
The price and video kind of put the 'duh' in 'dumb',
nick101
It's part of the "There's another '__' born every second" marketing plan
mediabeing
Well said.
It had to be said, and you said it.
Bravo.
Christopher Ronan
Um, so a company took a good bike that looks pretty dang decent stock and made it ugly and flat black and useless in the real world, and charges nearly $30k? "Tactical" marketing at it's best.