Two-wheeled tow ‘truck’

The Retriever is a two-wheeled towing vehicle based on a Honda Goldwing motorcycle that can worm its way through city gridlock and congested highways like no four-wheeled towing vehicle could ever dream of. The Retriever is the ingenious invention of the aptly named Swedish firm Coming Through. According to the company, it takes a little over a minute to convert from a nimble motorcycle to a towing device powerful enough to haul most passenger cars. The Retriever’s driver simply extracts a folded bracket stored behind the motorcycle’s high back seat and then hitches the car’s front end to the bracket. As a business venture, a towing service based on the Retriever could take a little more time to set up, however. Throughout the world, towing firms compete under various schemes for the right to rescue cars stalled on public roads. Police are often the authorities who order a tow truck on the scene, and they would need to be sold on the Retriever’s ability to handle the job. And some accident-damaged cars might require a heftier vehicle to haul them away. That said, the Retriever’s ability to rescue a vehicle and quickly unsnarl traffic could make it a hit. So the real opportunity might be for distributors who could sell Retrievers either to private companies or public road authorities. (Related: Motorcycle taxis rescue stranded business travellers.) Spotted by: Lilia Parra Ledesma