Harley-Davidson is an icon of American culture and the most popular marque for custom builders. Shortly after the company was founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, customizers started bobbing, chopping and dirt tracking the famous V-twins.
After WW2 Harley motorcycles were at the center of the bobber craze, and kept their lead as Californian bikers turned to choppers in the late 1950s. The 45-degree engines have their own nicknames and folklore: from flatheads, knuckleheads, panheads and shovelheads to today’s Evolution and Milwaukee-Eight motors.
The Sportster is the basis for more Harley-Davidson customs than any other model. Originally fitted with an ‘Ironhead’ motor, it turned 60 years old in 2017. It’s probably the single most customized motorcycle on the planet, and certainly has the largest supply of aftermarket parts.
This week’s edition of Speed Read is about as eclectic as it gets. We’ve got a Honda super-commuter from Taiwan, a twin-engined salt racer, a movie recommendation, a futuristic Yamaha XSR155 render and a nine-wheeled Harley motor home.
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When it comes to vintage Harleys, we prefer a ‘less is more’ vibe. Bikes that are loaded with billet and bling, or sporting airbrushed illustrations on the tank, are just too much for us. This elegant Shovelhead from Japan is the kind of custom V-twin we love. Stripped back to the mere essentials, it comes…
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Julian von Oheimb has been customizing Harley-Davidsons for ten years as One Way Machine, and is a regular fixture on the podium at AMD World Championships. But the German builder has a proclivity for older machines, and has never worked on a donor newer than 15 years old. Until now, that is. One Way Machine’s…
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It’s that time of year again! And once again, it’s been a year we’re glad to see the back of. The pandemic didn’t seem to put a dent in the custom scene, though: for every larger workshop experiencing a slowdown, there seemed to be an amateur builder taking up the tools. This list is a…
Read more »Our job involves hunting for the world’s freshest custom motorcycles, day in, day out. But we’re only human, and it’s impossible to…
Read more »Not all scramblers are created equal. Some wear high pipes and knobbly tires, but may never go off-road, while others are made…
Read more »After a hiatus last year, the annual Mooneyes custom show finally graced the halls of the Pacifico Yokohama Exhibition center ten days…
Read more »What would the legendary Bratstyle builder, Go Takamine, do with an Indian Chief? We’ve got the answer, along with a Zero SR/F…
Read more »Few Harley-Davidson models can boast the same cult following as the V-Rod. With a Porsche-designed motor and muscle bike styling, it was…
Read more »If pushed to pick a golden age for flat track, most folks would suggest the late 60s to the early 70s. It…
Read more »When we first saw images of this bike from Custom Works Zon, we assumed it was a restoration job. And it looked…
Read more »There are a handful of classics out there that look amazingly ‘right.’ In that category, we’d put machines like the Norton Manx,…
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