North Carolina
ON THE GAS. Tattoo Customs’ ‘Blue Velvet’ BMW R80RT Cafe Brat
Forget the disco-era 1970s or even the golden age of the Renaissance, turns out men have been wearing colourful velvet since 200 BC in China. Personally I’ve never got the trend; unless you’re the legendary American pimp, Bishop Don ‘Magic’ Juan, then you’re probably best leaving the velvet in the draw…
MISTYCUFFS. 2topia’s Wild Laverda Ghost Strike 668 Restomod
I won’t lie. The first thing I did for this story was hit up the Google oracle and ask the god of the internet, “What the hell is a Laverda Ghost Strike 668?” An esoteric model, even amongst its quaint Italian brethren, the bike was seemingly named after a Steven Seagal movie…
GOING POSTAL. Tattoo Customs’ ‘Bane’ ’73 BMW R75 Roadster
We’ve all heard the one about reinventing the wheel. But what happens when your wheels go missing? For North Carolina’s’ Tattoo Projects, a set of rims that took a detour into the twilight zone transformed a relatively simple BMW custom job into a post office nightmare that took no less than seven months to straighten out…
HIGH STAKES. Tattoo Custom’s ‘Vampire Slayer’ Suzuki GN400 Cafe Racer
North Carolina’s Tattoo Custom Motorcycles have many strings to their bow. Out the front of their shop they’re an advertising company, working with a wide range of clientele. But their fearless leader, Rudy Banny, also has a healthily unhealthy passion for motorcycles…
FASTER DAUGHTERS. Tattoo Custom’s ’74 Honda CB360 Brat Cafe
When it comes to a custom builder’s inspiration, we thought we’d seen it all. Bikes inspired by Japanese swords, lightspeed spaceships and sociopath hit men? Been there, done that; as with most truly creative pursuits, inspiration can come from almost anywhere…
‘Das Spaniard’ BMW R80RS Tracker – Tattoo Custom Motorcycles
This old 1986 BMW R80RS has had four iterations. In its original form it was a tourer, designed to ferry middle-aged German men to Paris for wine tasting, to Madrid for lunch, or Kiev for sex tourism. Then Tattoo Customs got their grubby hands on it, stripped it back, painted it black and stuck Firestones on it, dubbing it a mixture of a cafe racer and a bratstyle bike – a ‘Brafe’. But the Firestones went all Firestoney and dumped the bike onto the road. So the third model was born: a nose down cafe racer with a psychedelic paint scheme. And now it’s been changed again – this time into knockout Bultaco-inspired flat tracker. Fourth time’s a charm.
