custom

Harley-Davidson Laguna Seca Pays Tribute to a Race Track It Would Look Great On

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Tribute motorcycles are a dime a dozen in the custom industry. Most of the time, though, these builds like to honor older self-propelled machines, be they two- or four-wheeled, but that’s not the case with the bike in the gallery below. This is another creation of German custom Harley garage called Thunderbike, and the bike we have here, originally a Breakout model, is a nod to one of the most famous race tracks on the American continent: Laguna Seca. The 2.2 miles (3.6 km) long Californian circuit is home to both car and motorcycle races from MotoGP, Formula 750, AMA Superbike, and so on. That means it is only natural for people to dream about driving or riding on the tarmac where motorsports’ greatest names have once been. In the case of a Thunderbike customer, that dream took the form of this specially-made Breakout. Shown a while back at the Custombike fair in Bad Salzuflen, Germany, the Harley-Davidson Laguna Seca sports all the Thunderbike modifications we are used to by now. Wrapped in a unique custom paint created by Ingo Kruse, the bike also comes with a wealth of custom parts, ranging from the front and rear fenders to the wheels, sized 23-inch front and 21-inch rear. The headlamp, triple tree, handlebar, grip set, and exhaust system are also of Thunderbike design. Thunderbike is a German Harley dealer that for the past 20 years has also doubled as a custom shop. The finished product covered in this piece is part of a larger series of custom builds the group has made over the years, one called Racing Series. This family includes other racetrack tribute bikes like the Silverstone and Mugello. We’ll bring them under the spotlight in the coming days as part of our Two-Wheeler […]

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Vagabund V12 BMW R100 RT May Looks Like a Monster, But It’s Fully Street Legal

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The now defunct BMW R100 line, debuted by German bike maker BMW in 1976, went down in history as the last line of the air-cooled airheads produced by the Bavarians. While on the market, the family included a wide variety of models, and enough of them were made over the years for the breed to still be around today. Most of the R100s now in existence are closer to the scrap yard than an actual road, however. But that’s how we see them, because custom garages have an entirely different view of the bike’s potential. We’ve already seen what the French can do when they get their hands on such two-wheelers when we talked about builds like the Blitz Naso Nero, or the Black Ops, or the Green Beret. But how about an Austrian take on the R100? A local shop that goes by the name Vagabund has an entirely different approach than the French when it comes to converting Bimmer bikes. Instead of tracking down parts and adapting them for whatever build they’re working on, Vagabund went the high-tech way and turned to 3D printing. The motorcycle you see in the gallery above once was a 1994 BMW R100 RT, but careful tuning and customizing turned it into something called V12. And despite its menacing looks, the build is “100% street legal.” Completely different than what BMW had in mind when it first made this motorcycle, the V12 features a host of 3D-made parts: the fork cover (with integrated turn signals), rear end, handlebar controls, housings for indicator lights and headlight, all have been created from scrap and to exact specifications to fit the bike. All these elements, although quite visible, do not however stand out as much as the rear wheel, completely covered

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Chupito Is a Shortened 1977 Ducati 350 With Funky Custom Parts

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The general feeling among some motorcycle lovers is that if it isn’t a Harley, it should be at least a full custom bike. Anything else or less is either not worth making, or not worth talking about. Harleys and other custom builds are just two drops in a huge ocean of two-wheelers, though, and no one knows that better than Europeans. It is from there (and Japan) where the majority of the world’s famous bike brands come from. Admittedly, the custom market for all bikes European is not as great as the American Harley one, for instance, but it does exist, and it creates incredible designs at times. Somewhere in Spain, a shop by the name El Solitario MC has been customizing whatever it got its hands on for years. As part of our Two-Wheeler Month feature, we uncovered some of its most exciting projects. One of them is the Chupito, once a Barcelona-made 1977 Ducati 350 that has been modified at the request of a “great tequila drinker” customer to ”dribble around Madrid’s lights.” It took the garage around two months of not-so-intense work to restore the Ducati and turn it into something else by carefully modifying, removing or fitting new parts. Keeping the original patina wherever possible, the Chupito comes with a tad shorter subframe than it originally had, it has no battery thanks to the rewiring of the electrical system, and hosts a front Honda CB fender as rear fender. El Solitario also relocated the gas tank and the gas level indicator, and gifted the bike’s engine with a see-through window to make the oil level visible. Also, special graphics adorn the fuel tank of the build We are not being told how much the transformation of the Ducati cost, but the

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Screamin’ Eagle-Engined Airstrike Highnecker Is a Pure German Custom Motorcycle

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Because June is Two-Wheeler Month here at autoevolution, expect to see a wealth of crazy vehicles from this category being displayed before your eyes. Older or newer, famous or less so, all will get their time under the spotlight as we are trying to celebrate the best in the world of motorcycles, scooters, bikes, and anything in between. We’ll set off with a build called Airstrike Highnecker. The insanely-looking machine is an older work of a German Harley dealer that doubles as a custom garage. Called Thunderbike, the group has been in the business of making custom Harleys for the past 20 years. But the company is also building its own custom frames, of which most get Harley-made hardware. We’ve already talked about its RS Lambo or Outerlimit creations, both extreme and both meant as tributes to Lamborghini cars. The one in the gallery above is called Airstrike Highnecker, and has been built on one of the Germans’ custom frame. In comes, of course, with a Harley powertrain, but other than that, most of the parts used on the build are Thunderbike’s own creation. Mounted inside the frame is a Harley-Davidson Screamin’ Eagle 110ci engine, linked to an OEM Harley transmission. The power developed by the engine is put to the ground by means of milled monoblock wheels, sized 23 and 21 inches front and rear. The list of custom-made parts include the fuel tank, handlebar, rocker boxes, headlamp and tail light. Mechanical hardware, such as the brakes, suspension and swing arm are also of Thunderbike make. The exhaust, on the other hand, is a Jeckill & Hyde product. As most of Thunderbike’s builds, this too is a one-off. It has been made not to be sold, but to showcase what the Germans can do

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Stripped Down Yamaha SR Winning Loser Is All About Bare Minimum Hardware

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com It’s Two-Wheeler Month here at autoevolution, so expect to see some of the craziest builds in the industry being featured here over the next 30 days, no matter the category they play in: motorcycles, scooters, bikes, and anything in between. For what it’s worth, we’ll be trying not to flood your screens with Harleys and such because, believe it or not, there are other motorcycles out there that can be customized just as easily, and with probably the same spectacular effect. Take this thing here. This rat rod of a motorcycle was once a Yamaha SR 250, but was modified and christened Winning Loser. It was according to the Spanish garage that made it, El Solitario MC, its first “ever bike to be built from scratch.” The build as you see it in the gallery above was created as the company’s first project, meant to take part in the now defunct Metamorfosis Masiva build-off competition held in Spain. It wasn’t expensive to make, just €1,000 ($1,100) having been spent on it, but it sure required quite a lot of time to get in this shape: 500 hours, according to El Solitario. Riding very close to the ground, the motorcycle is stripped even of its most essential hardware. There is no battery (replaced by a “68.000 microfarads capacitor” to provide the needed sparks) and not even a properly sized fuel tank – the tiny one fitted on it can hold just 0.8 gallons of fuel (3-liters). The motorcycle was made to look beat down on purpose, and that effect was mainly achieved by using things one doesn’t usually use in bike making, like metric wrenches that are used as struts to help the rear go down, and bicycle handlebars fitted upside down on flanders risers. The

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Pack of Custom Harley-Davidsons Out Hunting, Apex Predator Leads the Way

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com/ In April 2020, Harley-Davidson concluded a custom build competition called King of Kings. Dedicated to its network of international dealers, the contest saw some incredible machines coming out the door of garages spread throughout the world. King of Kings was the coronation of an older, similar Harley initiative called Battle of the Kings (BOTK). It brought together 15 shops that have won BOTK in the past, competing against each other to get the majority of the 50,000 public votes cast during the event. Over the past month, we brought you each and every one of the 15 builds in detail, as a testimony of what a little imagination and some technical expertise can do to an otherwise stock Harley. We finished our run through the list on Saturday, and now it’s time to have a look at the entire pack of motorcycles that have wowed the crowds online. As you already know by now, the winner and the holder of this year’s King of Kings title is the Mexican-made Apex Predator. Based on a Sportster XR1200 with the stock engine, it is supposed to be a “retro-futuristic XR-based track monster meets street fighter,” and managed to attract the majority of the 50,000 votes. Built by a dealer in Mexico’s Queretaro, it features custom parts like front fork covers, dual air intakes, wave-style brake rotors, and a seat wrapped in Alcantara as a touch of class. The bike also received a TFT Bluetooth instrument panel, and a hand-built 2-1-2 exhaust system. Runner-up was the Greek-made Gryps, a Sportster designed in such a way as to be a mix between a real-life two-wheeled machine and a creature from the ancient Greek mythology – it is shaped somewhat like the mythological griffin of millennia ago. The Gryps is

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Harley-Davidson Forty-Eight Gets Low Stance and High Exhaust

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Two weeks after we started, we came to the end of our Harley-Davidson King of King’s coverage. Of the 15 bikes that took part in the competition, only one is left, the one its builders call the Harley-Davidson XL 1200 FT. The creation of Harley’s dealer in Bordeaux, France, the build started life as a regular Forty-Eight, and received a number of changes meant to alter its appearance and performance and make it suitable for the Harley-designed contest. As usual, the shop had to respect the budget limit imposed by Harley for the bike to be admitted into the competition, so the changes that have been done to the stock machine are not necessarily extensive, but they are effective. To give the bike – officially called XL 1200 FT – a meaner appearance, the rear has been shortened and the exhaust has been raised to a higher position. At the front, the fork has been paired to high performance shock absorbers that also help give the motorcycle a lower appearance, and there’s also a special housing for the headlights. Engine wise, not many modifications have been made to the stock engine. The shop did add new camshafts and a high-flow air filter, but that’s about it. “Our XL 1200 FT brings together modern and historic elements of the brand to make it a somewhat timeless motorcycle,” said the French dealer about the build. As did all other bikes that have been entered in the competition, this too needed public votes to win. In the end, it failed to do so, and the title went to a Mexican build named Apex Predator. King of Kings was a competition dedicated to Harley’s international dealers. 15 bikes were featured on the roster from all around the world, all

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Harley-Davidson Iron RR Is How an 883 Looks Like With Stage IV Tuning

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Two weeks in, there are not that many bikes left to talk about in our coverage of the Harley-Davidson 2020 King of Kings competition. Only two are still to be admired, and one them is this Polish-born Iron RR. The build-off event dedicated to Harley’s international dealers concluded in April, and it has already crowned its winner, the Mexican-made Apex Predator. But each of the builds that entered, 15 in all, had something special about them. Most of the bikes we’ve seen so far have been all about crazy looks and only minor mechanical upgrades. In the case of the Iron RR, the ratio is somewhat inverted, as the Szczecin-based shop focused more on performance than extreme looks. The build is based on an Iron 883, but one that got its tendons replaced and its heart pumped. The garage replaced both the front and rear suspension, added a new fork, and fitted the two-wheeler with sports brakes. All these changes were required because the motorcycle’s 883cc engine got tweaked with the inclusion of the Harley-Davidson Stage IV tuning kit. The new hardware is backed by a new exhaust system. The Poles did a bit of work on the bike’s appearance as well, just to make sure the build sends the right message. There’s a special paint scheme on the bike’s body, but also a new LED light system up front. All the modifications made by the garage did not exceed €6,000 ($6,500), which was the budget limit imposed by Harley-Davidson for the participants. The other rules of the competition stated that the base motorcycle needs to be a Harley-Davidson, at least half of the parts used for the tuning to be taken from the Harley inventory, and the finished product be road legal. As is

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Pandemic Panhead Project, Part 2

The tanks and fender are out to Deny 925, the master of patina paint, for a scallop classic paint job. In the meantime, I needed to install the Morris Mag, decide on a carb, install the front brake, finish a handful of welds, work with the guys at Bates on a clutch cable, make an old clutch lever work, hell, make the brake lever work and find a brake cable, take the springer apart and add Paughco inner springs, install the headlight and taillight, make a muffler bracket and mo’. READ THIS BUILD TECH ON BIKERNET – CLICK HERE JOIN THE CANTINA – SUBSCRIBE TODAY https://www.bikernet.com/pages/custom/subscription.aspx

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Blacked Out Harley-Davidson Melville Has More Tattoos Than a Yakuza Henchman

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Technically, this modified Harley-Davidson Forty-Eight has been designed to be incarnation of a bunch of Japanese myths. Looked at from afar and in a totally superficial manner, it looks more like something the Yakuza would ride around on. The bike is the creation of Harley-Davidson’s dealer in Shizuoka. It has been the shop’s entry in the King of Kings competition whose winner, the Mexican Apex Predator, was chosen by the public in April. Called Melville, the motorcycle was once a stock Forty-Eight that received both a serious makeover and a bunch of new parts. The shop had to stay true to the rules of the Harley competition, and that meant taking at least half of the custom parts from the Harley inventory. A long list of such hardware, including things like the rocker covers, the saddle, or the fuel cap, are also of Harley origin, but new to this Forty-Eight. What strikes the eye the most when looking at the bike is the way it looks. The pitch-black apparition lacks the chrome parts others are so in love with and use extensively on their builds, and even the fork is black. The only thing that breaks the trend is the extensive drawing on the fuel tank and some of the other new parts on the motorcycle. According to the people behind this build, the tattoos displayed in a silver that perfectly offsets the dark tone of the bike are supposed to separately represent things like “prayer,” “death,” and “awe,” and combined to form some type of myth that is easy to understand if you’re Japanese. Of course not all those who voted in March and April were Japanese, and many of them probably didn’t get the message the builder tried to send, so the bike

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