Cafe Racer 1: The Plan

Whilst the Racer already has many key ingredients of a Café Racer, like the dropped handlebars, short single seat, “floating rear” and a lovely engine, wheels and brakes, there still are some areas to be improved on. I am focused on cleaning up the rear, making it as short as possible. I also want a custom exhaust mounted up under the rear end, leaving the rear wheel free of clutter. In order to replace a number of mass-produced components, I chose BMW’s “719 Machined Parts” in Storm Grey finish. The large format mirrors and indicators also need to be replaced with compact, period-fitting designs. Finally, I chose a racing theme paint job from the 70’s and matched it with a fitting helmet. My logic is: capitalise on the strengths of an already good product and through cost efficient customisation create an emotive, but affordable, one-off.