It’s all about cafe racer this week, with a Harley Sportster from Thailand, a Triumph Thruxton from Hong Kong and a BMW from the UK. Additionally, an in stock standard Ducati MH900E with a mile meter is for sale.
Harley-Davidson Sportster Forty-Eight by FatBoy Design and Slayer House Last week, we reported that The Motor Co. built their last Evo Sporty. This week, two Thai design studios are reminding us that it will remain popular for years to come, with one of the most radical ideas. custom sports car we have seen.
The project was conceived by Chakkaphan ‘Mark’ Rungsukcharoen at FatBoy Design, who wanted a bike to be displayed at the Bangkok Hot Rod Custom Show 2022. Inspired by the Lamborghini Murcielago SV owned by his father, Mark wanted to incorporate Working with a custom workshop specializing in carbon fiber. So he invited Nattapat Janyapanich at Slayer House.
The team only has 60 days to transform a bone stock Sportster forty-eight into the wild, auto-influenced machine you’re looking at here. The idea is to build a modern cafe racer with a strong sense of track performance, while blending the design language of supercars. Or, as Nattapat puts it, “to introduce Harley-Davidson in a new way, to reach a new generation with a passion for speed.”
Mark and Nattapat started by sketching their concept, before 3D scanning the original bike and designing the entire project digitally. Nattapat then 3D-printed the bodywork, on which the final carbon fiber components were vacuum-formed. The list includes the Sportster’s sharp new fender, two-piece fuel tank cap perched above the steel tank, and a race-style flat tailgate.
The bodywork is complemented by a host of 3D printed details, including the grille, air intakes and fins below and above the tail. Instead of painting the car, Mark opted to adorn the carbon fiber parts with a set of racing-inspired decals.
Mark also considers the base bike a performance upgrade list. The front is a pair of shortened Showa forks, held in place by CNC machined forks. A longer Öhlins rear shock absorber props up the rear.
The wheels are by Roland Sands Design, and the brake calipers are painted in sporty yellow as a hallmark of Lamborghini. Other details include Performance Machine brake discs, FatBoy Design rear calipers and sets, Performance Machine levers and switch covers, and speedometer brackets and clamps from RSD.
The engine carries a host of features, including an Evolution Industries opening primary, a chain converter with FatBoy sprocket, ‘transparent’ camshaft and camshaft housings from the Machine Figure. The Two Brothers exhaust system, Performance Machine input and ECU tuning unleash a bit more power.
Mark and Nattapat rode their bikes to the Bangkok Hot Rod Custom Show on time, and left with the ‘Best Café Racer’ award, along with the ‘Best of the Year’ judges choice of none other than Shiro. Nakajima at 46Works.
Now that that’s done, the bike is set for its next goal: road racing. [Source]
Angry Lane’s Triumph Thruxton Current model victory thruxton is one of the best factory cafe racer on the market today with no need to change or upgrade. But the same cannot be said of its predecessors. Previous Thruxton models had the right styling, but were uncomfortable to drive and lacked the refinement of today’s models.
However, this 2007 Thruxton from Angry Lane doesn’t have those problems. Angry Lane is a luxury leather goods business run by two French brothers, Guillaume and Ben Barras. When they don’t design leather goods and stylish clothes, they build custom motorcycles.
The owner of this particular Thruxton brought it with a very specific goal in mind. He’s happy to spend money on it, but doesn’t want anything wild. Instead, since the bike is his daily commute, he wanted to keep the aesthetic changes tasteful and restrained, while shifting the focus to modern performance and reliability. .
The most impressive visual feature, aside from the matte paint, is the new rear end. Angry Lane shortened the subframe and soldered it to a boot loop, then added an aluminum hood with bespoke LED taillights. The spacious padded seat (for a cafe racer) is wrapped in Ferrari-inspired leather.
Thruxton’s new performance gear includes Ohlins suspension, with custom 17-inch wheels from Canyon wrapped in Pirelli Angel GT tires. The Beringer brake disc and caliper take care of the stopping duties thanks to a custom brake caliper holder from Lossa Engineering.
Angry Lane also ditched the airbox to replace it with a pair of K&N Filters, then rebuilt and carbureted. The silencer is from modern classic American specialist Triumph, British Customs, and the entire exhaust system has been coated with black ceramic.
In the cockpit, you’ll find an LSL clip-on, with a Motogadget speedometer, grips, switches, turn signals and side mirrors. The team also rewound the bike with a Motogadget controller, installing an Antigravity battery and a Mosfet regulator in the process. Thruxton also gets LED headlights, LSL taillights, and a new guardrail and chain guard.
It may not be the weirdest Triumph cafe racer, but that’s why we love it. Instead, it’s a luxury sleeper that will go, stop and corner harder than the first-generation Thruxton in your garden. [Angry Lane]
BMW R80ST by Kunst Maschinenbau Boxer customs are a dozen, but rarely do they take more than 700 hours to build. Even so, John Nixon wasn’t interested in building a half-baked plane when he took on the project.
For his day job, John is an armor repairman on a Hollywood set. But thanks to his technical know-how and professional motor vehicle engineering training, he also tinkered with bicycles. And when he does, he tends to go deep.
For this project, John took the year 1984 BMWR80ST, and turned it into a classic concept bike. There are nuances of classic racing bikes and café racers here, but the real bottom line is that this boxer has been redesigned as a pure machine. Think about what HPN did to turn the original R-series BMWs into race-ready machines and apply that to a road bike, and you’ve got the idea.
There’s too much work to list here, but the highlights include the framing work, including stripping, blasting the grain, removing the tab, and then reinforcing it. John moved the engine mounts 25mm forward and 45mm upward to improve weight distribution, then welded additional cross supports. Therefore, he had to make the underlying chassis components removable so that he could get the engine and transmission in and out.
Suspension upgrades include Race Tech internals for stock forks, custom preload adjusters, FlatRacer struts, and Toaster Tan yoke. Harrison six-pot brake calipers run up front, with custom-built Wilbers shock absorbers installed at the rear.
The bodywork includes a BMW R45 fuel tank, with custom bibs and tailgate inspired by the iconic Ducati Imola design. The subframe is custom, while the seats are upholstered in Alcantara.
The engine was rebuilt by Richie Moore, who was well versed in building fast airhead engines. This one has been boosted to 980 cc with a full list of internal and external mods. The carburetor is Dell’Orto PHM and the exhaust system is handcrafted stainless steel. We could go on for hours on the details, but we’ll recap by saying that this 1980s boxer now makes 90hp at the wheel and weighs just 160kg dry. [353 lbs].
So what does it want to ride? “It needs a booster battery to start up when it’s cold, it ‘doesn’t work’ at 1,800rpm and completely loses ignition,” says John. “It will run on pumped fuel—if you flip the switch to the ‘B’ ignition scheme, but its natural diet is Sunoco 102 racing fuel.
“It doesn’t seem like a problem, because you’ll run out of sparks before you run out of gas. Maximum range is about 70 miles before the battery runs out, and so the ignition goes off—easily enough for a weekend on the track or a blast on a sunny Sunday. In short, you only get on this bike when you want to ride. You go out, you ride and, satisfied, you come home.”
If that appeals to you, this BMW is currently for sale. Tempted [Kunst Maschinenbau]
For sale: Ducati MH900e The Ducati MH900e is arguably one of Pierre Terblanche’s greatest successes. The legendary South African motorcycle designer first wrote it as an homage to Mike Hailwood’s 1978 racing bike, putting his own ideas on it rather than creating a direct copy. .
Ducati showed the concept at the Intermot show in Munich, then ran a survey on their website to see if they should build it. Feedback was so positive that the MH900e was put into production, only 2,000 were produced.
1,000 of them were sold out via Ducati’s website in just 31 minutes…so finding a clean bike for sale these days is a rarity. And this is very cleaning.
If you’re on the hunt for the MH900e, it’s currently for sale here at Iconic Motorbike Auctions. And it might be the latest example out there; Turn the key and you will see the odometer reads 2 km [less than a mile].
Numbered the “1200 of the year 2000”, this particular MH900e is fully stocked and has never been driven. In fact, it’s so blue that it still has the protective plastic pads that came with it from the factory. Heck, even the radiator is still wrapped. Iconic obtained it through a consignment from Japan and described it in detail before putting it up for auction.
Oh, and if you’re wondering if it really runs after two decades of inactivity, check out the video below. That sounds sweet, doesn’t it?
