I’ve made this comparison before, but Radical Ducati is to motorcycles what Skunk Works is to aircraft. The Spanish garage has been taking stock Ducatis and turning them into two wheeled missiles for years now and as such they’ve earned a deserved reputation as the single greatest custom Ducati garage in the world.
Chad Goings, owner of Goings Moto, recently set out on his own after doing an internship at Radical Ducati in Madrid. From a cafe racer perspective, an internship at Radical is the exact equivalent of a budding aircraft engineer doing an internship at Skunk Works.
This 1973 Seeley-Suzuki 500cc sold at auction on the 10th of this month for just $14,950 USD, I was surprised to see it sell for such an affordable sum given the prices that Seeley based machines usually go for.
This 1954 BMW Rennsport RS54 was one of the first racing motorcycle designs to come out of Germany in the post-war period, the FIM…
This 1920 photograph comes from the fantastic Museum Victoria collection, it depicts Glad Linaker, Lizzy Chinnery and Glad White sitting atop their v-twin motorcycles.
Racing Vespas might seem like an odd thing to do on the weekend but I can see the appeal.
Walt Siegl is, quite deservedly, one of the most famous custom motorcycle builders in the world. Far from the hideous kitch hellscape of the custom stretched out chopper scene, Walt works from his garage in New England and creates some of the most beautiful and technically advanced custom bikes you’ll find anywhere on Earth.
This particular Indian is fitted with an overhead 8-valve 61 cubic inch v-twin with a Bosch magneto, a Hendee carburettor, 28 inch wheels, no brakes and no throttle.
The Moto Guzzi Le Mans is rapidly becoming a popular target for cafe racer builders, the Le Mans is factory fitted with a classic v-twin positioned “sideways” in order to benefit from better airflow and this gives the bike an appealing, clean look.
The 1956 BMW Rennsport RS54 is a great example of what the Germans can achieve when they get their heads together and decide to go racing against the Brits and the Italians.
The Harley-Davidson Sportster is one of the more cafe-racer-conversion friendly motorcycles out there, they always have an eye-catching look to them and performance isn’t too shabby if the builder can get the weight down to sub-Sherman Tank levels.
Every now and then a motorcycle like this, the Triumph Thunderbird 650cc Baby Mine Dragbike, pops up for sale at an auction, this invariably leads to people like you and me questioning which organs we really need and how much we could feasibly get for the superfluous ones on the black market.
