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Harley-Davidson El Divino

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com “Lots of metal, lots of color, lots of everything!” These are the words used by German custom motorcycle shop Thunderbike to describe El Divino, a Softail Heritage 114-based project looking more like a bike worth admiring than riding. True to the Chicano style of motorcycle building (the likes of which we’ve seen before from Thunderbike, like say with the El Dorado), El Divino came into the world sporting the exaggerated front and rear fenders of the style, an extremely long exhaust system, and a paint scheme that either makes your eyes hurt, or shed tears in delight. The bike sports modifications all over. First, there’s a swingarm conversion especially designed by the shop for the Chicano style. Called Toxic, it was developed with the goal of being a fit for both the 18-inch wheel and another in-house-made piece of hardware, the pulley brake kit. Then come the modified triple trees for increased steering angle, allowing for the fitting of a massive 23-inch wheel. An air ride suspension is also on deck to make the motorcycle get low for artistic value whenever the need arises. From the minor parts like the license plate frame to more important ones such as the brake discs, almost everything has been tampered with in one way or another. In all, over 35 new pieces of hardware made their way onto the build, but none seem to be as in-your-face as the paint job. The golden-wooden appearance is the work of one of Thunderbike’s partners, Chiko’s Pinstriping. Chicano bikes have a lot of metal skin on them compared with other styles out there, and Chiko took full advantage of this to create a scheme you’ll either love or hate: much like with all Chicano bikes, there’s no middle ground here. As […]

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Harley-Davidson Fredbob Is the Perfect Mix of Custom and Stock

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Having been at the forefront of motorcycle building for decades, Harley-Davidson knows people don’t necessarily like its bikes as they come out of the factory doors. As such, the American company not only allows garages to do whatever they like with its two-wheelers, but also encourages them by providing a long list of custom or tuning parts itself. And that applies not only to North America, where the bulk of the world’s Harley custom garages is, but also to the rest of the world. In Germany, for instance, a shop by the name Thunderbike has been having its way with Harley bikes for close to three decades now, and it’s taking full advantage of what the Milwaukee company has to offer. The build we have here is an older one coming from Europe, and it is the perfect representative of how custom parts can be perfectly matched with factory-supplied ones. Based on a 2008 Fat Bob, the bike is called Fredbob and took about two months to put together. Moving along under the power of a 96ci fuel-injected engine controlled by means of a 6-speed transmission, the motorcycle packs hardware of both European and American make. Thunderbike has been in charge of the overall design of the remade motorcycle, but also fitted on the build a number of home-brewed parts, including an exhaust that allows the above-mentioned engine to breathe, the air cleaner, and the handlebar. Harley itself supplied the fuel tank, fenders, front end, swingarm, and the rims wrapped in Metzeler tires. Some of these elements, like the fenders or front end, have been further optimized by Thunderbike for the project. The whole reborn Fat Bob is wrapped in a paint scheme signed by the Germans’ favorite partner on this front, Kruse Design. Usually,

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Raked 1971 Harley-Davidson Sportster

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com It’s been a rough year for custom motorcycle fans, who, just like car lovers, had no major dedicated event in 2020 – except, perhaps, for Strugis. But that is more of a festival and less of a build display, so novelties were pretty much scarce. The coming year is shaping up to mark a relative return to normalcy. That means we’ll probably be getting all those juicy gatherings like Mama Tried, Congregation, or Born-Free again. Before this happens, though, the year opens with the Mecum Las Vegas Motorcycle auction at the end of January. As usual, the auction house is flooding the market with old, vintage, rare, or custom builds. In all, 1,750 bikes are listed for sale, either on their own or as part of collections. One prominent such display of bikes is by the Legends Motorcycles Museum in Springville, Utah. It comprises 36 motorcycles owned by the museum’s Rick Salisbury, and the 1971 Harley-Davidson Sportster chopper seen here is one of them. Harley started making Sportsters in 1957 and launched them into the wild sporting four-stroke, V-twin engines, at first from the Ironhead family, and later on using the famed Evolution. Like all other Harleys, it was quickly adopted by custom shops and turned into different things entirely. The one we have here pays tribute to the custom choppers of the 1970s. It’s raked build makes it look aggressive, though not as long as other bikes of the segment. It also looks extremely fresh, thanks to the warm blue custom fuel tank (hinting to an Indian Larry build) and rear fender that complement the cold of the exposed engine, exhaust, and wheels. Mecum does not provide any technical details on the two-wheeler, and it’s not venturing into making a guess as to how

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1981 Shovelhead custom

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Not that long ago, we ran a story about a customized Breakout called Stella. The work of German custom shop Thunderbike, the motorcycle was the perfect opportunity for me to state that Harley does not give bikes girl names. And it doesn’t. Go as far back as you like in the history of the company, and you’ll see mostly male names, or names that are generally associated with males: Road King, Street Bob, Cross Bones, Iron, and so on. But Harley riders do give their bikes girl names. That was made clear to me almost immediately by the comments posted on the Stella story, with people saying their Harley bikes have names, not designations, and these names include stuff like Belladonna, Jolene, Delilah, Dolly, Scarlet, or Christine. Someone even said he likes to call his bike Mazikeen (that’s for you Lucifer fans out there). Back in June, when the world was in full lockdown, and there was no hope of bike shows to be held in-person, 60 builders from 10 countries showed their creations online as part of Harley-Davidson’s The No Show. Among them was North Carolina resident Billy Childress. His build, a 1981 Shovelhead, is yet another proof that builders and riders like to think of their bikes as being females (maybe Harley should take notice). It’s called Linda, taking the name of the builder’s mother. Like many projects of its kind, this one, too, was designed with the fuel tank at its core. Starting from that, Childress sourced the rest of the parts and started putting the bike together, from the wheels that make the connection to the ground to the straight exhaust pipe pieced together out of four other pipes, and of course, the Shovelhead engine fitted inside the frame. Like all

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Harley-Davidson Spoke Bob 21

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com When they are not going for a full-blown shocker build like say the one Orange County Choppers used to make, custom motorcycle garages have very few options at their disposal to make their projects stand out. Finding the right wheels is one of the easiest ways to ensure a custom bike sends the right message across. Having remade literally hundreds of Harley-Davidson bikes over the past 25 or so years, the Germans at Thunderbike know this all too well. Sure, they do make their own custom frames, and when they do wheels are not that important anymore, but when going for a Harley conversion they are essential. So essential, in fact, that at times these guys even name their builds after the type of wheel used. We’ve already seen the Street Bob-based Big Spoke, and here’s another, the Spoke Bob 21. Also based on the Street Bob, the motorcycle rides – as its name says – on multi-spoked 21-inch wheels that are sure to catch the eye as they roll down the street. But they are not the only changes made to the two-wheeler. Thunderbike went in full custom mode for this one, providing their usual complement of modifications in four key areas: fender, saddle, tank, wheels. Aside from these, a forward control kit was fitted, but also a pulley brake kit to go with the build. In all, around 16 elements went into the making of the Spoke Bob, all of them of Thunderbike design, with the exception of the front and rear signals, supplied by Kellermann. We are not given any info on how much the motorcycle cost to put together in this form, but a quick math exercise (Thunderbike lists the parts used, and most of them are available in their shop)

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Horny Air Horn by Air Stream Studios

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I thought you might be interested in seeing my ‘Horny Air Cleaner’ featuring part of an original ’34/’35 bugle Ford horn. I couldn’t make this puppy live without a kustom backing/mounting plate, made by my good friend Lee Wimmer of Wimmer Machine. Click Here to See this Fun Feature at Bikernet Join the Cantina – Subscribe Today https://www.bikernet.com/pages/custom/subscription.aspx

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Harley-Davidson Street Devil

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com For people living in most parts of the world, motorcycle riding is pretty much over this year. Winter is upon us, and two-wheelers are being tucked away until the hot days of the spring and summer reach us once more. But as we prepare to celebrate Christmas, we can’t stop from continuing to show you the incredible builds coming from Germany, out the doors of a garage called Thunderbike. For the past 25 years or so, these guys have rolled out literally hundreds of Harley-Davidson-based builds, and their work only seems to be accelerating. For today we’ll focus on a slightly older project of theirs. Called Street Devil, it too is based on the Street Bob (a 2006 model), one of the favorite canvases of the shop. As usual, the bike has been modified in key areas, namely by tampering with existing or adding new hardware – these new parts are either of Thunderbike or Harley make. The bike’s twin-cam engine has remained pretty much unchanged, but breathes through a new shotgun exhaust with tapered mufflers made by the Germans. They are also responsible for the engine cover, air cleaner, grips, forward control kit, and seat. The Americans supplied the fuel and oil tanks, rear fender, shortened front end (by 2 inches), and the lowered suspension (by 1 inch), among others. The bike rides on custom wheels wrapped in Avon tires and the front and Metzeler at the rear. Just like the rest of the build, and to be in tone with it, the wheels come in red and white – the graphics on the motorcycle is the work of Thunderbike’s favorite partner in this area, Kruse Design. The shop gives no indication as to how much the build of the Devil cost to make.

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1968 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Given all the lockdowns and social distancing measures ordered in place for most of the year, motorcycle shows got canceled or postponed just like everything else. Trying to save face and give custom shops across America a means to vent off steam, Harley-Davidson created The No Show event back in June. Held online on Instagram and Youtube, it was the perfect opportunity for some 60 builders from 10 countries to show their latest or best creations, builds that would have otherwise risked sinking into oblivion in 2020. As you might expect, most of the shops taking part tried their best to advocate the projects being presented, describing in detail and at times using big words the two-wheelers we were seeing. But not Tennessee-resident Rusty Perkins, the man behind this here 1968 Shovelhead. If you thought the title of this piece is some personal opinion on the build, you were wrong. These are the words the builder himself uses to describe the motorcycle: “nothing real special about it, simple, the way I like ‘em.” And that statement pretty much sums up the American custom motorcycle scene: a great two-wheeler is not what the onlooker wants or expects, but what the builder/owner thinks it’s right. As all the others in the series, Perkins was given a little over two minutes to present his bike. He uses most of them to give us a seemingly bored rundown of the motorcycle (available in the video below), without actually saying anything about it. He does reveal the bike was built over a long period of time, using what is described as a “messed-up Shovelhead frame” as a starting point. Slowly, the project was gifted with an engine, the proper wheels a chopper should have, a peanut tank with some flame

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Stainless 1940 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead Has Oil Running Through Its Frame

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Just like car lovers, motorcycle enthusiasts around the world had to settle for online shows this year. In America, where the bulk of custom shops is located, that was nearly a tragedy in itself. Most of the nation’s summer events – aside from Sturgis, obviously – were either postponed or canceled. Some bike makers, like Harley-Davidson, stepped in and tried their best to ensure people still have a means to show their creations. For the Milwaukee-based company, that aid came in the form of The No Show, a Youtube-based series that featured back in June the machines created by 60 builders from 10 countries. Among them was this 1940 stainless steel Knucklehead, coming our way from Buffalo, NY-based Christian Newman. Built a couple of years back, the bike is the winner of the People’s Champ competition, and the recipient of the prize for best Knucklehead at Born Free. The build has stainless steel frame and fork, housing the slightly-modified 1940 Knucklehead engine, a narrower-than-usual transmission, and a reworked clutch. One of the most important custom touches involves the way in which that engine gets its oil. According to the builder, there are almost no hoses on this bike. The oil gets into the engine directly through the frame, via the right-side chain stay, and gets back into its tank through the front downtubes. Visually, the bike looks like a proper custom build centered around Harley hardware but also blends some elements from the automotive world. The front lens of the headlight, for instance, comes from a 1951 Chevrolet, while the rear lenses (there are two of them) have been taken from Hudson cars made in 1940 and 1941, respectively. As a side note, had this year’s Born Free show taken place at the scheduled date,

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Harley-Davidson Dynamight Is a Metal Predator

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The beauty about the custom projects, be it the car or motorcycle ones, is that generally speaking these products never get old. No matter when a build was made, and no matter how old the base for the project was, many of these creations still turn heads, cause a stir, or ignite debate once they come into the spotlight. Take this 2010 Harley-Davidson Street Bob, for instance. Or should we say, the Dynamight, as this is its post-conversion nickname, bestowed upon it by the garage responsible for its coming into the world, the Germans from Thunderbike. Completed a while back after a two-month effort, the motorcycle is a great representative of what custom Harleys mean over in Germany, even if, at first glance, it kind of does not look aggressive, as Thunderbike bikes usually do, but cutesy, like a metal panda of sorts. But truth be told, it’s anything but. Packing the original 96ci engine, the bike breaths through a custom exhaust system, rides on 23-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels, and bows on an air ride system. There is a long list of parts that went into the build of this two-wheeler. Thunderbike itself is responsible for most of them, from the rocker boxes and air cleaner to the fuel tank and forward control kit. The clutch and brake cylinder are from Rebuffini, the speedometer was made by Motogadget, tires from Avon (front) and Metzeler (Pirelli, rear), while the painting is the work of a shop by the name Kruse Design. We are not given any hint as to how much the entire build cost to make, but we do have the list of some of the parts used and their prices. Simple math gives us a guesstimate of at least 6,500 euros (about

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