LC Fabrications is run by a quietly talented man by the name of Jeremy Cupp. Jeremy sends me an email every now and then with news of his latest build, and it always takes me a minute or two to figure out what I’m looking at because so much of the bike is fabricated from raw metal.
With this bike, named Seven, we needed a little time to get our heads around the engine. Jeremy has somehow mated a Ducati head to a Buell cylinder, then paired it with a Triumph gearbox and made it all work flawlessly. I’m not one to believe in magic, but anyone who can make bits from three engines work as a single unit has to have at least a little Louisiana Voodoo running through their veins.
Jeremy took inspiration for the builds from the Harley-Davidson CAC Speedway Racer, a bike originally released in 1934 due to customer demand for a factory-spec racing motorcycle to compete in speedway events. The low-slung hardtail frame, small fuel tank, minimal front suspension and notable absence of a braking system have inspired speedway motorcycles for decades.
In order to create the feel of the CAC, Jeremy chose a Buell Blast engine as his starting point. He mentioned that the Ducati head had to be heavily modified in order to work correctly, which I can only assume is a wild understatement – the entire cam chest was modified to use a series of idler gears to drive the lower belt pulley.
Once the engine was sorted, Jeremy set his sights on a classic Triumph transmission. He used a modern Triumph hydraulic clutch slave and the pre-unit structure of the powertrain fits the CAC feel perfectly. A custom frame was then created from steel tube and a custom oil tank, rear fender, engine shield and fuel tank were handmade from aluminium by Jeremy to complete the look.
Those of you looking at the front suspension with a furrowed brow will be glad to learn that its an entirely unique design for this bike using a combination of a springer with a Showa upside down fork – the spring has been removed from the Showa so they act as dampeners, and the springer provides its namesake. Jeremy is developing a production run on this design that he calls the Hydro-Springer which will bolt on to the the Harley-Davidson Narrow Glide frame.
Jeremy’s work has been growing in fame throughout the custom motorcycle community, and this particular build is going to be shown at Michael Lichter’s exhibit, and has been shown at the Hand Built Show in Texas, Fuel in Cleveland and Smokeout in North Carolina.
If you’d like to see more from LC Fabrications you can click here to visit their official website.
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