Pin-up Centrefold Harley-Davidson
Marcel had lots of mates with custom Harleys. It was only a matter of time before he built one of his own.
I’VE HAD a Honda CBR and a Ducati before this bike. I got the Harley because it was something different. A bunch of mates had custom bikes and I thought, ‘Oh well, I could just buy another Ducati, but… I just made the choice to buy a Harley.’ I bought it as a stock standard bike. Two months later I stripped it down to just the bare frame and got Darryl at Farnon Fabrications to start the design and build process.
We stayed with the genuine Harley-Davidson frame which was stretched up and out, raked and widened to except the 300 rear wheel. Darryl has it sorted and sets them up to ride straight.
The motor was given to Lorenzo Capogna to work his magic, and once again, he’s turned out another reliable tyre shredding combo
The guard and seat were all custom made by Darryl—it’s amazing what you can do if you have got a good fabricator.
The paint on the bike was done by two brothers, Michael and Joe Accardo.
The front-end is a DNA springer.
The West Coast tank was touched up and fitted to complete that classic old school chopper look.
The handlebars are just early model Harley-Davidson. They are upside down, back to front.
The oil lines are handmade out of copper. They took hours upon hours to do, trying to get them to fit.
The exhaust is actually called ‘fucking loud’ and that’s pretty much what it is.
The open primary belt drive is BDL three-inch.
The seat was then covered by Dave from Bad Arse Trim Co, the best in the business.
The 51 mm carby is the largest that Screamin’ Eagle make but they don’t make a cover to fit the air-filter properly. You can get one but it doesn’t do it justice. I decided to leave it open.
I went with Jaybrake forward controls, master cylinder and levers.
The wheels by Weld are called Redneck.
I used skateboard wheels with high speed bearings to take up slack in the chain and eliminate the need to adjust the rear wheel.
It’s about $90 a year to keep the PINUP number plate; not much at all.
Many people ask me how comfortable it is—or uncomfortable it is. It’s actually a quite comfortable bike to ride. It handles well and is very well balanced. I’ve ridden it enough to know that it handles great.
I haven’t entered it in any shows. I built it more for myself to enjoy and it just went from there.
When the bike was being built, the accessories I was picking, the candy red colour, just reminded me of an old hot rod on two wheels. So I looked at it and I thought, ‘What goes with an old hot rod? Pinup girls!’
It gets a lot of attention everywhere it goes and I really enjoy it.
Check out the photos of our Pin-Up girl at Exotic Serena.
Photos by Wall 2 Wall; words by Marcel
