It’s a known fact that electric motorcycles do not pleasure you with the exquisite noises made by their petrol-powered counterparts, but they do offer you crazy torque, low maintenance and erm, a rather interesting engine note. While the biggest issue faced by electric vehicles today is the current limitations on battery power, it seems quite irrelevant when when you start talking about racing, where you just have to do a set number of laps on a fixed length circuit.

This is where electric motorcycle manufacturer Brammo comes in, their latest racing bike, the 2013 Brammo Empulse RR and it’s set to take to the track for the new racing series organised by FIM and TTXGP. The bikes will be run during the 2013 season, and Icon is the primary sponsor of the Brammo team, designing everything from helmets, racing suits, pit-crew suits, motorcycle decals to racing gloves and boots.

Icon’s Design Director Kurt Walter explains the goal behind the artwork of ‘Big Game’ and ‘Sauvetage’: “Fierce as a zebra, fast as a cat”. That was original livery pitch we presented to Brammo for the 2013 TTXGP series. Much like our original 2012 Stack livery proposal, they were moderately horrified. Of course the pith helmets and full khaki Jumanji outfits we were wearing during our meeting may have played into Brammos initial queasiness with the idea. Eventually they realized we were actually serious about the zebra and leopard theme and gave us the non-verbal signs of furrowed brow and crossed arms that the ICON marketing team has come to recognize as glowing approval of our questionable tastes. Tally-ho, the hunt was on.”

“As with the 2012 campaign, the Icon involvement with the Brammo race team is an all-encompassing affair. We design the entire livery, build the suits, paint the helmets, and outfit the entire pit crew with gear. Generally Icon doesn’t play well with others, but Brammo provides us with a great amount of creative freedom, and in turn we go all out to make sure they have they most avant-garde livery on the track.”

“The leopard print will be run by Steve Atlas and is my personal favorite of the two designs. We call this livery ‘Sauvetage’ which is the French term for ‘rescue’ often emblazoned on the side of French Mirage fighter aircraft. Following the aircraft theme, the leopard print itself is derived from the camouflage used by the Afrika Korps Luftwaffe aircraft during WWII, albeit in floo-red instead of desert tan. The inclusion of the shark mouth ensures that we have ample America clues on board the bike to balance the aforementioned French and German influence.”

via Silodrome