America’s largest motorcycle manufacturer south of the Mason-Dixon line created shockwaves in 2018 when Confederate Motors rebranded itself as an all-electric luxury bike maker, marking a significant shift away from its original Hellcat, Fighter, Bomber and Wraith internal-combustion engined products of the past. In its previous 25-year incarnation, Confederate had built a total of 1300 outrageously unconventional and expensive V-twin power cruisers, carving out a discerning clientele which included Hollywood’s rich and famous. But after practicing the art of rebellion for a quarter of a century since its foundation in 1992, it changed both its name and its focus by going all-electric. It did so while assuming the mantle of early 20th-century American motorcycle and aviation pioneer Glenn H. Curtiss, thanks to Confederate president Matt Chambers’ foresight in acquiring the rights to the Curtiss Motorcycle Co. brand in 2011.
But that didn’t mean that Confederate Motors was gone because what’s almost the best kept secret in modern American motorcycling, Chambers sold that brand to one of its most loyal customers, the multifaceted Ernest Lee, owner of a Hellcat G2 Speedster and a P51 Fighter. Lee acquired the entire Confederate package – the trademark, intellectual property, the designs, the frame jigs and the goodwill – and after establishing a new factory in Alabama, in 2021 he restarted manufacture of several of its most iconic models, latterly rebranded under the Combat name to avoid the controversial connotations of the company’s previous moniker. These have included the motorcycle many observers and its discerning
