Pipeburn Video: Bonita

As you may remember, we recently featured a very beautiful Honda cafe racer called "Bonita" that got quite a respectable response from you, the good readers of this here blog. Actually, it was more like Beatles riot come to think of it. Basking in the post-victory afterglow, Pepe and I were shooting the poop on all things Bonita, and he mentioned that he was really impressed with the two Deus videos we had recently posted. Luckily for us (or more correctly, me) it didn't take a genius to figure out what to do next; we'd celebrate the the hottest girl we knew using the magic of modern video. And after many hiccups (including delaying the shoot due to a heatwave) we have managed to finish the thing. What an epic odyssey. Hope you like it.

Many thanks to Pepe (of course) for letting us dance with his babe on the roof of a supermarket at midnight, and his trusty sidekick Pablo. Thanks to Toby for his eccentric yet genius DOP skills and Banana Joe's for letting us shoot on their roof. Also thanks to Lee from BJs Custom Choppers for letting us stay after the lights went out (long story). The song is "Some Kinda Love" by The Velvet Underground.

Honda 1971 CB450 "Bonita Applebum"

Suddenly, Bonita found herself lost and alone in a scary but very well-lit cave (click for a larger version)

Here's another bike from one of the new friends we made at the Deus Build-off. Please meet the very lovely Bonita Applebum and her old man, Pepe Luque.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I was born in Bolivia and migrated to Australia at the age of 2. I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in a family of 7 in a small housing commission home (aka 'housos' to us westies). As you could imagine, I spent most of my time on the streets getting away from a cramped up houso, where we were fighting over every little thing. Meanwhile, I had taken up skateboarding which till this day I still do and love. The rest of the time was spent modifying cars in my mother’s backyard, poor Mum! These mods were basically pulling out the piston motor and dropping in a rotary. Some of the cars were Gemini's 12a and 12a turbo, Datsun 1000 coupe 12a, 13b turbo, and a Ford Anglia (Harry Potter's car) 12a and so on... In the meantime, while skating, I managed to pick up a few sponsors and a few speeding fines! I eventually moved out of the western 'burbs and I am currently working for a large private hospital on Sydney's North Shore as the Operating Theatre Prosthetic Inventory Co-ordinator. Still skating biatches! I also love snowboarding, wakeskating, PS3 and anything to do with Apple Inc. I love building things and Bonita Applebum is my first ever bike build.

Click to read more ...

1972 Honda CB450 Café Racer

We were recently accused of featuring too many Honda CB’s on Pipeburn. So when I received this CB450 from Benjie Flipprboi at BCR, I had to think twice about posting it. After about 10 seconds of thinking... I decided it was too nice not to feature. The bike was painstakingly built over an 18 month period by one of Benjies good customers Kevin Dinsmoor – using a lot of BCR products. The unique shaped tank is a BCR Hammer Head and one of my favourite tanks on the market. The cafe seat is also from the talented Mr Flipprboi and both tank and seat have been painted in an old Toyota Corolla green from the 70's with anthrecite pin stripe. "It took a while to choose" says Joe. "I don't have photoshop so it took days to settle on a stripe pattern and three rolls of tape." This is how Kevin describes the project:

The wheels were coated semi-black and sent to Buchanan's for new stainless spokes and lacing. I used a front drum from a 1970 CL450 I had – loved the look. Forks rebuilt, tapered stem bearings. Engine was a complete tear down and rebuild +3 over bore. Polished everything possible. Homemade rear sets (BCR style), pegs machined stainless. BCR bars with 450 gauge. LED bolts in tree for neutral & hi beams. Stock handlebar mount holes filled and poished. New vintage switches for bars without kill switch. LED bolts for turn signals, drilled out headlamp mounting bolts and threaded in the signal led's. BCR head light brackets. Powdercoated upper shock tubes. Sectioned stock headlight ears to use for gator upper mounting. Hondaman electronic ignition. BCR velocity stacks. CB900F rear shocks, disassembled and polished. Nickel plated chain. Rear set frame mounts custom made, lowered and moved back. BCR stainless pea shooter exhaust (my neighbors hate me now). The biggest pain in the butt was the rear swing arm. It is 3" extended. The stock one just looks too short. So I made it longer. Then the shocks (the longest shocks with fork bottom) were too short, so I sectioned the shock mount off a CB550 swing arm and grafted it onto my arm. Then the center stand was too short for the new ride height, so again I sectioned two center stands together for the height while keeping it tight to the exhaust so it still looks cool when it's up. The bike took 1.5 yrs to build and three CB450 bikes and a few CB550 parts.

Apart from his neighbours hating him for that peashooter exhaust, I think most people (including myself) will love this classy CB450 café racer. For more pics you can visit Kevins Flickr page.