If you’ve heard of or even had the privilege of visiting the Petersen Motor Museum in the US before, you’d know just how impressive some of the machinery on display is, especially in ‘The Vault’.
Some longtime readers may even recall a feature we ran last year, which included a full tour of not only the museum, but also the Harley vs Indian exhibit.
Well, this time we take another trip to the hallowed grounds in Los Angeles to enjoy another amazing exhibit, one that was simply referred to as a ‘Custom Revolution’.
It truly was a collection of custom motorcycles to behold, with some of the most amazing and unique creations on the planet all under the one roof.
The Custom Revolution exhibit gathered the most avant-garde and influential custom motorcycles from independent builders around the world.
These young mavericks continue to push the creative edges of motorcycle design, using both new and old engines, new and old chassis ideas, and truly innovative styling.
It’s a whole new scene, led by globally connected, internet savvy designer/builders, whose work has grown beyond the ‘show’ circuit to dramatically influence the current generation of factory-built machines.
What was on the exhibit?
For the first time in one location the work of the most influential and alternative custom motorcycle builders of the past ten years was on show.
Just some of these international stars included Ian Barry (Falcon), Shinya Kimura (Chabott Engineering), Revival Cycles, Roland Sands, El Solitario and our very own Deus Ex-Machina from Australia.
With bikes from the US, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan, it truly was a mix of some amazing and diverse talent.
All major brands, including Live to Ride!
The Internet and press attention lavished on some of these builders was nothing short of astonishing, Live to Ride included.
It was like being knee high to a grasshopper again running around a toy shop having a brain overload.
No surprise to see they have millions and millions of fans around the world watching their every move either, including the design teams at the big factories.
It’s also no surprise to hear many of these builders have been approached to collaborate on prototypes or show bikes by the likes of BMW, Yamaha, Harley-Davidson, even Ducati.
Some have created iconic machines using factory support, and the influence of all these designers on the motorcycle industry over the past ten years is crystal clear.
Factory design teams readily admit following the lead of these ‘alternative custom’ beacons, whose work is now being acknowledged as seminal to a new vision of motorcycling itself.
And here’s what we thought to be the pick of the crop.
List of stunning models to swoon over
Beezerker (2010)
Built by Speed Shop Design – Boston, MA
The highly finished construction and interesting surface textures of the ‘Beezerker’ reveal builder Christopher Flechtner’s experience as a silversmith.
Every detail is precisely crafted, with almost everything apart from the 1965 BSA A65 motor imagined and fabricated by Flechtner himself.
Although unusual looking to traditionalists, its dropped handlebars, rear set footrests and humped seat nonetheless identify the ‘Beezerker’ as a café racer.
Style: Café racer
Original Manufacturer: BSA
Year & Model: 1965 BSA Thunderbolt
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 650cc twin-cylinder
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Black (2011)
Built by Falcon Motorcycles – Los Angeles, CA
Among the designers building new-generation customs, none rose as quickly into superstardom as Ian Barry and his Los Angeles-based Falcon Motorcycles team.
The execution of each Falcon is so detailed as to defy belief.
The ‘Black’ began as a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow, a machine of legendary performance and the fastest standard motorcycle in the world for decades.
Falcon made it faster, better and technically more intricate with a totally new chassis bristling with innovative modifications sensitive to the bike’s heritage.
Style: Café racer
Original Manufacturer: Vincent
Year & Model: 1952 Black Shadow
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 1000cc V-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
White Phantom (2015)
Built by Kingston Custom – Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Dirk Oehlerking’s ‘White Phantom’ began as a BMW R80RT.
Viewers first notice the striking bodywork of the ‘White Phantom’, characterised by a white parallelogram with curved ends arcing in consonance with the wheels.
The fairing hides a powerful 800cc turbocharged engine, and Oehlerking carefully installed Formula 1-appropriate insulation to protect the rider.
Style: Dragster
Original Manufacturer: BMW
Year & Model: 1986 R/T
Frame: BMW
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: Turbocharged 800cc flat-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Dirty Pigeon (2017)
Built by Heiwa Motorcycle – Hiroshima, Japan
Built around a 1971 Triumph TR6 engine, the barebones, elegantly-reductive chassis of the ‘Dirty Pigeon’ took top honours at the annual Mooneyes Custom show in Yokohama in December 2017.
It is the premier bike from the foremost custom motorcycle show in Japan, and its success instantly amplified Heiwa’s visibility outside builder Kengo Kimura’s home country.
Its perfected style complements its tightly conceived construction, both of which contribute to its popularity as much as the accolades the ‘Dirty Pigeon’ has received.
Style: Dragster
Original Manufacturer: BMW
Year & Model: 1986 R/T
Frame: BMW
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: Turbocharged 800cc flat-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Musket 2 (2017)
Built by Hazan Motorworks – Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles wunderkind Maxwell Hazan rapidly fixed his star in the custom motorcycle scene with his impeccable design sense.
He is a rare builder, and it seems everyone loves his ‘silver machines’.
His ‘Musket 2’ is a custom twice over, built from a limited-production engine by Aniket Vardhan (called the ‘Musket’) with a chassis fabricated wholly by Hazan.
The ‘Musket 2’ has an appealing schematic quality, one of the reasons Hazan’s creations are among the most sought-after.
Style: Bobber
Original Manufacturer: Musket
Year & Model: 2018 Musket
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 1000cc V-twin by Aniket Vardhan (Musket)
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Petardo (2015)
Built by El Solitario MC – Vigo, Spain
Anyone who understands motorcycles is intrigued by the ‘Petardo’ and how it resolves the ‘list’ every motorcycle must address—where is the fuel, how is the rider placed, and how do they interact with the machine?
The ‘Petardo’ answers such fundamentals in a radically different way, and as a result looks like no other motorcycle.
It is truly El Solitario’s first masterpiece, a paradoxically mature expression of David Borrás’s vision.
The word ‘petardo’ means ‘firecracker’ in Spanish, and like its namesake, the ‘Petardo’ must be noticed.
Style: Scrambler
Original Manufacturer: Ducati
Year & Model: 1993 900SS
Frame: Ducati
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 900cc L-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
J63 Schwantz (2014)
Built by Revival Cycles – Austin, TX
Revival Cycles’ founders Alan Stulberg and Stefan Hertel are the geek squad of the custom scene, reveling in their love of technical details and enthusiasm for design, fabrication and technology.
The ‘J63 Schwantz’ began as a Ducati 900SS SP, an aged design with modest performance and ‘plastic-bike’ looks.
Pushing their skill set, the Revival team designed their first custom frame for this project, which Stulberg sketched on a napkin and Hertel translated into metal.
Style: Café racer
Original Manufacturer: Ducati
Year & Model: 900SS SP
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 900cc L-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Needle (2005)
Built by Chabott Engineering – Los Angeles, CA
Shinya Kimura’s 2005 ‘Needle’ was on display at the Legend of the Motorcycle Concours d’Elegance in 2006, where it sat humbly in a display of extravagant, enormous customs from then-dominant television star builders.
Unlike the others, the ‘Needle’ was built around an unpolished vintage Triumph engine with a bricolage chassis assembled from blackened scraps and metal oddments, with rustic, hand-hewn aluminum bodywork in strange shapes.
Kimura’s discerning and artistic aesthetic set the tone for the coming alternate custom generation.
Style: Dry lakes racer
Original Manufacturer: Triumph
Year & Model: 1957 TR6
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Handmade aluminum tank and seat
Motor: 650cc twin-cylinder
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Rondine (2013)
Built by Medaza Cycles – Cork, Ireland
From a small town near Cork, Ireland, Medaza Cycles grabbed the traditional custom motorcycle world by the nose, winning the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building in 2013.
The single-cylinder Italian motorcycle had prevailed against the long legacy of V-twin-based customs, planting the flag of the alternate custom movement at the heart of the old custom world.
That the ‘Rondine’ was voted the winner by a jury of its bike-building peers speaks volumes about the changes in the global custom scene.
Style: Café racer
Original Manufacturer: Moto Guzzi
Year & Model: 1974 Nuovo Falcone
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 580cc single-cylinder
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Sleeper (2007)
Built by Chabott Engineering – Los Angeles, CA
Working since 1992 in Japan with Zero Engineering, Shinya Kimura developed a highly personal chopper aesthetic that became known as ‘Zero style’.
All his work includes his distinctive style of bodywork of hand-hammered aluminum, but the ‘Sleeper’ also incorporates a totally custom-fabricated frame that is built around a vintage motor.
In this respect, both the ‘Sleeper’ and ‘Needle’ are especially unusual in Kimura’s artistic oeuvre.
Style: ‘Zero Style’
Original Manufacturer: Excelsior
Year & Model: 1914 Twin
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Handmade aluminum tank and seat
Motor: 1000cc V-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Speedster (2015)
Built by Ehinger Kraftrad – Hamburg, Germany
While the Ehinger Kraftrad ‘Speedster’ appears to be the most traditional and the least alternate custom of the group.
In some regards it is the most high-tech machine in the Custom Revolution exhibition.
The high-tech part of the ‘Speedster’ came in crafting the engine, using 1937 UL crankcases and modified Knucklehead top ends.
These parts do not really mix, as their unconventional pushrod angles attest, but Ehinger’s computer simulation proved it could be done. He considers engines the heart of his creations.
Style: Speedway
Original Manufacturer: Harley-Davidson
Year & Model: 1937 UL
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom
Motor: 1000cc mix of Harley-Davidson UL and EL motors
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Suavecito (2013)
Built by Sosa Metalworks – Las Vegas, NV
Cristian Sosa is a metalworking veteran even in his mid-30s, having taken his high school metalwork training to a job at Count’s Kustoms for 12 years.
This led to an early brush with celebrity as the shop was the focus of the custom car TV show Counting Cars.
After branching out as an independent shop in 2012, Sosa has made his own name, garnering big-brand sponsorship and appearing at the 2013 Mooneyes show in Japan with this highly modified 1940 Indian-based ‘Suavecito’ (‘smooth’ in Spanish).
Style: Board track
Original Manufacturer: Indian
Year & Model: 1940 Scout
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 750cc V-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Ago TT (2016)
Built by Deus Ex Machina – Venice, CA
Founded in Australia with locations in California, Bali and Milan, Deus Ex Machina is a bona fide institution in the custom bike building world.
At their Venice, California ‘Emporium of Postmodern Activities’, Design Director Michael ‘Woolie’ Woolaway builds Deus’ signature custom motorcycles.
The ‘Ago TT’ is Woolaway’s homage to Giacomo Agostini and his amazing record of wins at the Isle of Man TT.
Style: Café racer / road racer
Original Manufacturer: MV Agusta
Year & Model: 2017 Brutale RR
Frame: MV Agusta
Bodywork: Handmade aluminum tank and seat
Motor: MV Agusta 3-cylinder 800cc
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
BMW Alpha (2016)
Built by Mark Atkinson – North Salt Lake, UT
If there is a shining star in the custom motorcycle design scene, it is definitely Mehmet Doruk Erdem – a Turkish industrial designer whose computer-generated motorcycle studies spread like wildfire on the internet.
His sketches are so convincing it’s difficult to tell whether they are drawings or actual photographs of real objects.
Erdem’s designs typically remain images, but his ‘BMW Alpha’ concept became reality via a Bonneville Salt Flats regular named Mark Atkinson, a dedicated professional machinist and motorcycle builder in Utah who saw the promise of Erdem’s design.
Style: Salt flats racer
Original Manufacturer: BMW
Year & Model: 1991 K75
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Handmade carbon fiber
Motor: BMW K75
Exhaust: Custom stainless steel
2 Stroke Attack (2015)
Built by Roland Sands – Los Alamitos, CA
The ‘2 Stroke Attack’ is a mashup of Roland Sands’ two loves: racing and building customs. It has an air-cooled 1974 Yamaha RD400 two-stroke motor on a 1997 Grand Prix Yamaha TZ250 chassis.
While a mix of Yamaha parts seems like a natural fit, the motor and chassis are from wildly different eras and built for totally different purposes.
Sands sourced parts from World Champion Kenny Roberts’ shelves and his own pile of racing bits, and he built the fairing out of carbon fiber and the seat of hand-pounded aluminum.
Style: Road racer
Original Manufacturer: Yamaha
Year & Model: 1974 RD400 / 1997 TZ250
Frame: Yamaha TZ250 GP
Bodywork: Yamaha TZ tank, handmade aluminum set
Motor: 400cc straight-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated expansion chamber
Blue Monday (2017)
Built by NYC Norton – Jersey City, NJ
After leaving the publishing industry, NYC Norton founder Kenny Cummings turned to restoring motorcycles and building custom Seeley-framed race and road bikes.
‘Blue Monday’ was built specially for Custom Revolution and is representative of NYC Norton’s racing bikes, which differ only slightly from their road bikes.
Cummings’ race-oriented but vintage-inspired work is a bridge between the classic café racer era and today’s custom scene, as it fits comfortably within both camps.
Style: Road racer
Original Manufacturer: Matchless
Year & Model: 1962 G50
Frame: 2015 Roger Titchmarsh Seeley
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 500cc single-cylinder
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Crapshoot (2018)
Built by Alta Motors – Brisbane, CA
Of all the current e-bike builders, San Francisco’s Alta Motors has the most buzz because they focus on building extremely competitive off-road machines.
The ‘Crapshoot’ has just enough traditional drag-bike styling to seem vintage, but the motor is a versatile stock 50 horsepower Redshift electric underneath the fairing.
The ‘Crapshoot’ is among the first electric customs to excite traditionalists by showing respect to the best builders of the past while incorporating contemporary ‘green’ technologies.
Style: Dragster
Original Manufacturer: Alta Motors
Year & Model: 2018 Redshift MX
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: Alta Redshift electric
Ōishi Yoshio (2015)
Built by Ronin Motorworks – Denver, CO
Like the mythical phoenix, Ronin rose from the ashes of a dead motorcycle brand, Buell, and emerged a transformed manufacturer.
The ‘Ōishi Yoshio’ is a radical-looking motorcycle, matching the Buell’s equally radical cast-aluminum frame.
The ‘Ōishi Yoshio’ was built around a Buell racing motor to compete at the Pike’s Peak Hillclimb, where it took second place against a field of factory-backed racing machines.
While ‘ronin’ means ‘leaderless samurai’, ironically the unusual name of the ‘Ōishi Yoshio’ was derived from a powerful samurai leader.
Style: Road racer
Original Manufacturer: Buell
Year & Model: EBR 1190RX
Frame: Buell with Ronin forks
Bodywork: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 1190cc Rotax V-twin
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
Asymmetric Aero (2014)
Built by Alp Racing & Design – Los Angeles, CA
The ‘Asymmetric Aero’ is the fastest un-streamlined pushrod-engine motorcycle in the world for all capacities under 1000cc, but its speed is not why it has been included.
The ‘Aero’ was 3D-sketched as a unit with a rider, an approach which resulted in a minimised frontal area, eliminating dead-air pockets and reducing wind resistance.
It meant pulling builder and rider Alp Sungurtekin’s body into a gapless bond with the chassis, where he positioned his head, arms and torso a bit to one side in an asymmetrical reflection of the motorcycle itself.
Style: Dry lakes racer
Original Manufacturer: Triumph
Year & Model: 1950 Thunderbird
Frame: Custom-fabricated
Motor: 650cc twin-cylinder
Exhaust: Custom-fabricated
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