Courtney and the Harley-Davidson Moon-Eyes Concept

WE BUILT this custom Evo especially to compete in the 25th Annual Moon Eyes Show in Yokohama, Japan. This is a massive show in Japan. The Japanese have taken over the Moon Eyes brand and made it into a massive culture, and we were lucky enough to get over there and be part of it.

We went over the year before, checked out the show to make sure we would be able to get over there and compete, came back, had a game plan.

We worked hand-in-hand with Ian at VPW Performance Parts in Melbourne. He managed to get a container and so forth—six bikes, one container, from Australia; a lot of the guys were from Melbourne; one from Albury/Wodonga.

It took two weeks to get our bike to Melbourne, get it locked and loaded; 25 days to get over to Japan; and a few days before the show we got the bikes out of the container, cleaned them all up ready for the biggest show on the show calendar throughout the world.

We all managed to come away with participation trophies, Longest Distance Travelled, etc; it was a big achievement for Aussie blokes to take their bikes over and get them back unscathed.

We built the bike in a 10-month period. It is based around an Ultima frame: 200 rear, two-inch-over, 35-degree rake.

I had a RSD wheel lying around and decided to do something different with it. I sand-blasted the paint off and it came up a nice raw aluminium colour; I put some matt-clear over it to bring up that traditional magnesium style.

The rear wheel is off a Harley-Davidson Night Train. Same thing: stripped it down, sand-blasted it, matt-clear to match the front wheel.

To get the stance right, we used a narrow-glide front-end shortened down a little bit. We smoothed it all out; took the fender stays off.

We had a Dunlop rear slick off a race bike and decided to put it on for the show. The front is a Firestone Front Runner drag tyre. We wouldn’t run either on the street but decided they looked good on our show bike; it’s kind of a bare-bones drag bike/custom.

The rear guard is a nice hugger for the 200 rear-end.

The Lowbrow Sportster tank is Frisco-mounted; very traditional Japanese styling; they run all their tanks right up.

I had a Harley-Davidson Dyna which had a pretty strong Evo motor in it. We pulled that out, pulled it down to make sure everything was alright internally; took all the crap off it; got rid of the electrics.

I got a six-speed box to go behind it. We machined the starter locator so it was all smooth.

We ran the rear exhaust pipe out the left side of the bike; the front following the traditional side.

I sat down with a good friend of mine, Ben at Extreme Creations, where we CNC’ed up a lot of the parts. We got rid of the primary set-up and basically made it a chain-to-chain primary on the low side of the bike. Ben helped us design it so everything still worked without running the traditional casings.

Pretty much every part of the bike has been customised in some way. We haven’t pulled a part off the shelf that hasn’t then been chopped in half, welded and sectioned, to make it completely different.

I worked hand-in-hand with my worker and left-hand man, Tom McBeath. We set ourselves apart as far as customising a bike ‘and’ painting it as well. We are known as a paint shop but we’re looking towards a future of putting out a couple of nice bikes to sell.

Finally, I wanted to thank PPG Paints Australia who sponsored the motorbike and helped us get over there, and Sheridan and my family for supporting me in this endeavour.

Words by Kyle Smith at Smith Concepts; photos by John Turton at Celebrity Obsession

Courtney

I’M 21-years-old and currently living on the coast of NSW.

I’ve always has a strong love of all things motorbikes, cars and metal. Since a young age, I was always running up to the hotrod cars in a toy store instead of the Barbie Dolls and forever begging to be let onto the back of a Harley-Davidson.

I’ve since explored this passion and refined my dreams to owning a ’65 Shelby GT350 Mustang and have maintained my love for a beast of a Harley-Davidson to one day call my own.

I have been lucky enough to work with some beautiful motorbikes through my modelling career including this stunning custom created by Smith Concepts. To be able to not only own such a great motorbike but to be able to truely make it your own through customising—the construction, paint job and overall aesthetics—is a really great process and I’m glad to see more and more people getting into it. 

In the future I’d love to do more shoots with some different beauties and maybe even start a project of my own!