cafe racer builds Archives

This build comes to us from Bernie Blackwell in Melbourne, Australia. He tells you about it in his own words.

This 1973 Honda 750.4 cylinder completed its early life in the early 1980’s racing at weekends as a Hillclimber in country Victoria. Rumour has its name as the Bucking Bronco! Discovered in a Leongatha farmshed in early 2011,she was resurrected over 3 1/2 years. The battered original was stripped of 11kg of extraneous parts and fittings….with an industrial angle grinder!

The desired build was to achieve a Manx Nortonlike look(circa 1960)…. organic, brutal, muscular and yet elegant….with a minimal bare hungry look.
The handmade fuel tank,oil tank and tailpiece were fabricated by Bernie Willett of Eltham. Every nut, bolt, washer and bracket has been replaced or fabricated by hand.and its all been mastered by Greg Cook of Leongatha.

Some 40 years after its appearance at the World Exhibition in Tokyo (note the Souvenir coin on the tailpiece) this once mass produced modern classic has been given a full stripped down makeover.

Bucking Bronco lives on!…as CB73.

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This story comes to us from our friends at Atlanta Motorcycle Works. The team recently completed a build for a loyal customer who lost his father in the middle of a restoration project. This is the story in their own words.

Jared Morris ins’t your average “motorcycle guy.” Jared gets extremely passionate and involved in what he’s riding, this is especially the case with his father’s Yamaha RD400. The project with his father became a “ride as you work” type project. We could often hear Jared tearing down the street of his nearby neighborhood. While working on the project Jared’s dad fell ill, leaving him unable to assist Jared with the project. As life became more hectic for Jared, the bike became hard to make time for. Jared had been a long time friend and customer of Atlanta Motorcycle Works. We had helped Jared with small stuff all over his bike, but this time he had a different request. Jared wanted a completely custom motorcycle to honor his father who recently passed. From that point on we gave this bike everything we had in order to deliver something amazing to our friend.

Jared and his family were blown away with the end result. There’s a long list of things that set this bike apart from a stock RD400, but the most notable things would be the RD400 Daytona fork swap as well RZ350 swing arm swap and wheels. There’s a custom bracket allowing for an RZ Brembo front caliper. The Carbs have been vapor honed and re-jetted to work with the new DG exhaust and pod filters. The motor has been vapor honed, and the case covers have been powder coated. A new halo headlight has been fitted with new brackets. Updated hand controls were added with a pair of blast from the past rear sets to match. The front fender is an item off an XS750 that has been modified to fit this bike. The paint work was done with what Jared’s dad had planned for the bike. Jared’s Dad, Bob, was a flat track racer in his younger days. The bike has his old racing numbers as well as his nick name “Bullet Bob.”

Photography was done by Braden Cain.

www.brandencain.com/