Sometimes, a strange sequence of events sparks a lasting friendship. In this story, a sketchy eBay purchase and a work commission led the talented Chicago photographer trashhand to a local custom motorcycle workshop, Federal Moto. That connection led to a rock-solid relationship, built on mutual respect and trust—and this custom BMW motorcycle.
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The year is 1986, and Tom Cruise is playing Maverick in Top Gun—flying an F-14 Tomcat by day and tearing around on a Kawasaki GPZ900R by night. If you fell in love with that film and the bike ridden by its motorcycle-mad star, you’re not alone. “We all know that movie,” says Michael Muller of…
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Some custom shops crank out the same style of build, over and over again. But for Federal Moto that would be terminal. Their crew is young, eager to experiment and wary of stagnation. So when a local film production company approached Federal to build a custom bike, they picked a genre they hadn’t yet tackled.…
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Federal Moto have the Midas touch. The builds coming out of their Chicago workshop are sharp-edged, compact and big hits with our readers. But sometimes, success can be a double-edged sword. After releasing ‘The Sunshine State of Mind’ SR500 in 2016, Federal were bombarded with requests for a replica build. “But there’s no fun in building…
Read more »Milwaukee’s Mama Tried Show is one of the most eclectic shows on the calendar. Choppers, flat trackers and café racers all vie…
Read more »Ex-girlfriends have a habit of leaving things behind, but a motorcycle is rarely on the list. Yet that’s exactly how Federal Moto…
Read more »The holy grail of most custom builders is to develop a signature style. But there’s no exact science to this. It can…
Read more »The modern custom scene was built on a sturdy foundation of cafe racers, bobbers and trackers. But there’s a new wave emerging—modern…
Read more »From the moment their first build hit the airwaves, we’ve followed Federal Moto’s career. The Canadian crew has produced one killer bike…
Read more »Is ‘scrambler‘ the most overused description in the custom scene vernacular? Probably. It’s been allocated to everything from street bikes with upright…
Read more »Federal Moto’s Shaun Brandt is one of the rising stars of the custom scene, and he’s wowed us with several of his…
Read more »This is not your typical Honda CB cafe racer. ‘Fade To Black’ is probably one of the fastest middleweight vintage Hondas we’ve…
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