Author: Hunter

The Japanese custom scene sets rather than follows trends. Japan’s top builders each have a unique and instantly recognizable style, and the machines they produce are usually hard to pigeonhole. This 1970 Harley-Davidson FLH Shovelhead from Hideya Togashi of Hide Motorcycle (that’s ‘Hee-day’) illustrates my point beautifully. Togashi-san’s client simply asked him to build a bobber, leaving the rest to the builder’s discretion. A wise move. Taking loose inspiration from the boardtrackers of the 1930s, he blended together bobber and vintage tracker cues to build what can only be described as a Hidemo special. Also known as the ‘Hydra-Glide,’ the…

It takes a measure of blood, sweat and tears to build a good custom motorcycle. And then there are the tricky projects that call for an even higher level of perseverance. Like this vintage Triumph bobber—which took four years to complete and included a massive scavenger hunt for parts. “I’d always wanted to build a custom bobber using a pre-unit Triumph motor,” owner Marnitz Venter tells us. “But finding old and close-to-vintage parts is almost impossible.” Marnitz lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he runs the parts and apparel site Old Skool Trading. He trades in old bikes on the…

There’s no sign of the popularity of the BMW R-series waning. It’s been massaged and twisted in every direction, and just as we think we’ve seen it all, along comes something that blows our socks off. Case in point: this killer R80 from Arjan van den Boom. Arjan’s shop, Ironwood Custom Motorcycles in Amsterdam, gets regular orders for BMW builds. ‘The Mutant’ is Arjan’s twelfth boxer, and it’s a stark reminder that there are still new and exciting ways to customize an airhead. Since this R80 was a personal build, Arjan had no brief. So he decided to cut loose,…

There’s a new name to look out for on the custom scene: Federal Moto. It’s a startup workshop from Canada, and this remarkable Norton 850 Commando resto-mod is the company’s first build. The guys behind Federal are friends Shaun Brandt, Randy Venhuis, and Justin Benson. Their purpose is simple: create one-of-a-kind custom motorcycles, with functional riding gear to follow. For their first bike build, the guys wanted to push the envelope of Western Canadian motorcycle culture. “Seventies Japanese bikes are a dime-a-dozen in farmers’ fields across BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan,” says Brandt. “British bikes are much tougher to come by,…