The Big 5 (Attex 8x8)

[Mike]

Very cool. Great video and an exceptional eight wheeler with some crazy driver. I liked the very last attempt at coming out of the creek at the very end of the video.

[mark m.]

Mike, as I said to you at Ledges your machine is awesome! What did it for me was the Kubota motor and your fine workmanship combined with the military accent and twenty-five inch Rawhides. It just blew me away!

I cannot say this enough. I always love it when a different powerplant is installed in these 6wheelers.

Mark

[techfx]

Mesmerizing (both the machine and the video)

[Dirty Harry]

A very impressive resurrection of a truly rare and unique machine. What is the history behind these 8-wheeled Attex machine? What years were they produced and about how many where actually made?

Again, major kudos to you, Sir. It looks fantastic and seems to be near as unstoppable as the army tanks it was meant to emulate in training! (Great choice on the music for the vid, too!)

[whipper-ag]

I thought I was back in the Mekong Delta. The music was great. I was having flashbacks.

Whipper

[hydromike]

Thanks everybody for the great compliments, and thanks to the Evils for an awesome video; your musical tastes are basically awesome.

To answer 'Harry's question: I think there were 274 total made, and they were all made in 1972, to my knowledge.

JP and I went for a quick ride yesterday, and we only got about 1/4 mile down into the ravine before my sprocket tube broke, and I lost all drive to the left side of the machine. As a testament to he and his machines, he towed Big 5 up a pretty daunting hill with his bone stock 18-horse Max II. That's like towing a Caterpillar D9 with a sowing machine. We're actually lucky to have gotten out of there when we did, since Hamburg, NY got two inches of rain in the course of an hour. The stream we were in turned into a torrent right-quick.

The sprocket tubes are all rewelded and gusseted, so we're going to give her hell again next weekend, maybe.

~m

[mightymaxIV]

Impressive

Mike, I am very impressed that you took the time and effort to rebuild this machine. It seems that the engine had just the right balance of weight and power. I was impressed the that machine was able to back out of so many bad mud holes and I wondered if the engine weight in back had something to do with your great traction. From what I saw your machine was able to go into and over several areas that gave other machines cat fits. Can't wait to see some video of you and JP running through the bad stauff together. Again, congradulations on making a worth while project come together and then having the machine work so well.

[liflod]

Just re-read the whole thread! Good times!
The videohttps://vimeo.com/6004054 brought back some really good memories. My kids are a lot bigger now

[techfx]

It was great to see this, now long ago.

[smudvapor]

I got to take her for a spin at the last get together in Ash last spring. Cool machine, that was when I really started to concentrate on getting my own!

[ARGOJIM]

I just read this thread for the first time as I was not on the site at this time. I think this was the weekend I met Mike and Alyssa's first outing? I never ride with you guys this weekend as we were either with Buffalo or Leo on every ride and the big rides only seen most of you at the big stops.
Evil made a great video and I drew on each spot.

A great machine, nice to see it out at Ash at RIMfest this year.