Night Rod

Unique Hexagon Wheel Design on Custom Harley-Davidson Night Rod

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com If there is one element that can clearly make a custom motorcycle stand out in the crowd, than that element is the wheel. All it takes is a bit of imagination and some equipment to make a unique design, and you’re off to creating something no one else thought about before. When setting out to customize a motorcycle, more specifically a Harley-Davidson, shops usually spend a lot of time and at times money in selecting the best wheel design for their project. The guys over at Russian shop Box39 are a good an example as any in this respect, as we’ve seen over the past few months. Created about a decade ago, Box39 has a real thing for Harley’s V-Rods of not so long ago. In fact, the shop gave birth to an entire family of custom bikes based on that, called Giotto, which presently counts around 19 individual builds. The one you’re looking at is called Giotto 7 and according to the Russians it has been completed in 2021. It was originally a Night Rod version of the American muscle bike, and it received the usual complement of changes to make it unique. The most in-your-face elements of this apparition are of course the wheels, carefully crafted to display an uncountable number of small hexagons. The wheels are sized 21-inch front and 18-inch rear, the usual size combination when it comes to the Russians. A custom paint job over the modified body of the bike make the wheels feel right at home in this design, especially when looking at the plastic body kit that was slapped onto the front end and fuel tank of the Milwaukee machine. Box39 is not in the habit of telling people how much such a build costs to make, […]

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Harley-Davidson Sun Rod

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com For many bikes lovers out there, the Harley-Davidson VRSC is the most extreme motorcycle to have come out of Milwaukee. More or less short for V-Twin Racing Street Custom, the nameplate entered the Harley portfolio back in 2001 as the first bike using a modern-day DOHC engine with liquid cooling – the Revolution powerplant. Born as a weapon to fight off other muscle motorcycles, especially Japanese ones, the V-Rod as it came to be known was made until 2017 in a number of variants, including a non-street legal one called the Destroyer and meant for the drag strip. Of the ones that were allowed on public roads, the Night Rod, available for just two years between 2006 and 2008, is one particularly appealing canvas for a certain German custom shop we like to feature: Thunderbike. About a month ago we showed you the Thunderbolt, a Night Rod-based build meant to advertise a certain Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust system. Given how V-Rods, especially of this variety, are rare, we thought we’d bring another one to your attention. This one is called Sun Rod, as if denying the nature the original creators bestowed upon it. Described by Thunderbike as “optically perfect on the ground,” it too uses a Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust, but several other pieces of hardware too, making it significantly different, at least visually, from the Thunderbolt. Overall, not many parts went into changing the natural face of the bike, but the ones that did are very effective. We’re talking about an air ride suspension that can lower the height of the two-wheeler, a new forward control kit, a new, 18-inch rear wheel, and other minor tweaks like front turn signals, grips, and a custom tank cover. The special changes made

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Harley-Davidson Thunderbolt Is True Racing Street Custom Night Rod

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Back in 2001, Harley-Davidson decided to gamble a bit and risk it in the street motorcycle segment. It went for a new engine, with double overhead camshaft and liquid cooling, stuck it inside a frame, and called the bike VRSC. That’s more or less short for V-Twin Racing Street Custom. There were several types of VRSC bikes made, from the simple V-Rod to the mighty Destroyer. All were exciting to look at, insane to ride, and have inspired an army of new Harley followers. But VRSCs are Harleys too, and what is a Harley if not a canvas for others to play around with? We found such an example of a customized Racing Street Custom in Thunderbike’s portfolio. The German shop, used to changing the looks and performance of stock bikes from Milwaukee, transformed one variant of the VRSC, the Night Rod, into the Thunderbolt 280. The name takes after the exhaust system used. It’s called Thunderbolt and comes from specialist Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde as a purpose-built hardware for the Night Rod. But the addition of a new exhaust system is not the only change made. The bike gained an air suspension, a forward control kit, a new fuel tank, and a range of other minor hardware (things like turn signals and mirrors) that clearly make it stand out in a crowd. There is also the widened 18-inch wheel at the back, making the Thunderbolt look seem as aggressive as the Destroyer. In its over 20 years of existence on the Harley-Davidson scene, Thunderbike never had the habit of announcing how much its projects cost. The garage does allow you to guess, though, as it lists most (but not all) of the parts used. In the case of this here Thunderbolt, we’re talking

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