The Yamaha XS360 is an interesting motorcycle, the model never saw a huge production run and were, in many respects, the slightly smaller brother of the much more famous Yamaha XS400. Both bikes used an almost identical parallel-twin, air-cooled engine with a crank off-set of 180 degrees, both bikes had the same 6 speed transmission, both bikes used the same frame and both had a weight of 182kgs (400lbs).
This custom XS360 by The Hookie, a Germany based custom motorcycle workshop, has kept all the important elements of the bike in place whilst adding a few minor additions to bring out the bikes cafe-rat-racer potential.
The original handlebars were discarded in favour of a pair of classic clip-ons, the seat has been replaced with a custom all-in-one seat/rear cowling, a custom exhaust has been fitted, the mid-frame area has been tidied up, the fenders have been thrown away and the tires have been replaced by a pair of mud and snow chewing knobblies.
Custom cafe racers like this that have been designed with a minimal aesthetic and an rough-round-the-edges finish appeal to me greatly, they’re designed and built to be ridden, not looked at, and the negative comments shot back and forth by arm-chair mechanics ring a little hollow. This is a bike that doesn’t care what you think of it.
To see more from The Hookie, click the link here.
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
