The Honda CB550 is like the steak on the menu at the most pretentious restaurant you can think of – you know the one that has Salmon foam and Quail eggs cooked “three ways”. The steak is usually the banker though. The one meal you can easily pronounce and the one that is really hard to screw up. Plus, with the right cooking methods and sauces you can stamp your individuality on it. So when the Head Chef of “some new restaurant” David Jeffers wanted to buy a motorcycle, he started sourcing ebay for some prime steak… I mean some prime examples of the Honda CB550.

It didn’t take David long until he found his dream bike. It was a Dustin Kott CB500 café racer which ironically Dustin ended up talking David out of buying – yes, the builder told him not to buy it. Here’s David to tell the whole tale: “The story behind my bike is kind of interesting. I’ve had motorcycles in my life for as long as I can remember – my first motorcycle had training wheels on it. Growing up I always loved the oldschool motorcycles but never dipped my fingers into it. I did several custom trucks but never motorcycles. Now that I was a bit older (28), more mature and had the money to buy a motorcycle, I started combing the web for motorcycles. ebay,craigslist, etc. I eventually came across a motorcycle in LA that I loved and it happened to be a Dustin Kott CB500.

“I contacted him and he basically talked me into NOT buying that one he had built but buying a stock bike and designing and having him build it the exact way I wanted and involve me as much as I could. So I bought a Cherry 1978 cb550k from one of my fathers co-workers. Took it down to Newhall, California and all my idea’s that I had for as many years as i could remember. I always wanted to build this exact bike. The clean show bike but with a weathered copper sorta steampunk look. In my personal opinion a café racer should be a little dirty, anyways Dustin loved the idea to and we took out the engine and I took it home to rebuild. My dad and I rebuilt and leaned the engine, painted, polished and rejetted. We ditched the stock air box and got steel dragon velocity stacks.

After I was done with the engine it back down to start the final process. Dustin had sent some pieces out to get dipped in copper and clear coated. He also had everything I wanted black power coated black. Replaced the wheels, drilled out the rotor and some others things done. Relaced the wheels, fork seals, clip-ons, ditched all the gauges, mirrors, button start no key, toggle switches on for the high and low beams. We decided to leave the weld marks on the seatpan to give it unique weathered unfinished look. Anyway, I love how it turned out – retro weathered but still very clean. Plus it was a great experience having Dustin’s years of knowledge and skill to bring my design and dream bike to reality.”