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…

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…

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.