The Harley-Davidson VR1000 was a race bike developed in the late-1980s and early-1990s to take on the best in the world. We don’t typically associate the American motorcycle maker with performance machines, but the VR1000 was an exception to this – with a 996cc 60º, liquid-cooled V-twin, quad cams (double overhead per cylinder), four valves per…
The Honda ATC 250R is remembered today as one of the leading lights of the three-wheeled craze that swept the motorcycle world in the 1970s and 1980s. Ultimately these three-wheelers would be replaced with quad bikes due to safety concerns, many amateur riders were injured and some where killed when they flipped their three-wheelers, this…
The Honda Monkey Baja Africa is one of the rarest and most desirable iterations of the beloved Japanese minibike ever offered, although interestingly it was never actually built by the Honda factory. The Africa version of the Monkey bike was a kit made by Honda that you could buy and bolt on to your Baja…
This article was written by Death Machines of London founder James Hilton, the man who built the bike you see here before you. When possible we like to bring the story of a vehicle to you in the words of the person or people who built it, to give you direct insight into their thought…
The BMW R100GS was released in 1987 as the next iteration in the GS family after the original and much loved R80G/S, a motorcycle that almost single-handedly launched the modern dual sport category. The pressure on the engineers at BMW to follow up the R80G/S with a new model was intense. The multiple Paris Dakar…
The Honda VF1000R was the high performance member of the Honda VF1000 model family. All models had an advanced V4 998cc double overhead cam 16-valve, liquid-cooled engine but the VF1000R had a series of modifications to boost power and bring the bike closer to the Honda FWS1000 race bike which was competing in the Daytona…
The Cheney Suzuki TM400 MX is the result of (arguably) the world’s best motorcycle frame maker taking on (again, arguably) the worst handling motocross motorcycle of all time, and turning it into a race winner. When Suzuki released the TM400 MX “Cyclone” in 1971 they touted it as a world-beating motocross bike for under $1,000,…
Fichtel & Sachs decided to call their first Wankel engine motorcycle the Hercules W2000 and they showed the prototype at the 1970 West Cologne Autumn Motorcycle Show: that prototype featuring a shaft drive and four speed gearbox from a BMW R27 that would not be used on the production model.
This is the 2016 Trackmaster Miler prototype, it was developed by the team at Trackmaster to be the ultimate version of the modern Harley-Davidson-based street tracker. Far from being a Sportster with a few bolt on fibreglass parts, the Trackmaster Miler has a full bespoke chromoly frame, a custom aluminum alloy fuel tank, side covers,…
Blitz Motorcycles is one of the original modern custom garages, they’ve been building their signature custom bikes in Paris for almost 10 years now, in a secret location near the heart of the city. The bikes built by Blitz founders Fred and Hugo are immediately recognisable, they’ve been shipped to clients all over the world…
The new-for-2020 Arch KRGT-1 is the latest model from the motorcycle marque co-founded by Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger in 2011. The company has a factory in Los Angeles that hand-builds production motorcycles in limited numbers for clients around the world. The 90 day build process is somewhat similar to getting a suit tailor-made, the…
The Knucklehead V-twin fitted to the Harley-Davidson EL is doubtless one of the most famous motorcycle engines of all time, and it’s certainly one of the best-known American V-twins of the 20th century. The name “Knucklehead” was coined by the EL model’s owners after the distinctive rocker boxes atop each cylinder – they have curved…
