Vato Vicia Harley-Davidson Road King
“I wanted to build this bike into a tail-dragger bagger, something a little different to what I’ve built recently,” said Nathan of Livin Loco Garage on the Gold Coast.
I BOUGHT this bike from a guy at the Sunshine Coast. It was a stock 1995 Harley-Davidson Road King with mini apes, an 18-inch front wheel and a black paint job. After the engine and transmission were completely rebuilt, I fitted a 21-inch front wheel and a set of fishtail exhausts.
The fabrication on this bike started with stretching the rear guard five inches; we fully smoothed it out as well.
The after-market bags were stretched out four inches and we fitted the 1961 Chevy Impala tail-lights to the bags. Each tail-light has three functions built in: the tail-light, brake light and indicators. It was a massive job to get the tail-lights set up like this.
We fabricated the tank as well to give it a lip over-hanging from the top. It’s a bit hard to see with the two-tone paint on some angles but looks cool from front on.
The rear suspension is an air-ride suspension that drops the rear end five inches.
The seat was cut down dramatically from the standard one and trimmed by Steve at SS Trimming. The lighter brown gives the overall look of the bike another colour dimension.
Since I do a lot of engraving on customer’s bikes I decided to engrave the bars on this bike to give it the look I was after.
The paint is a pearl cream colour with a brown root-beer candy separated with spun gold leaf. It also has a variegated leaf pinstripe to finish it off. I have really enjoyed working with brown paints lately and I’m happy with the way the paints with the gold have come together to give the bike that timeless finish.
The bike was built at our shop, Livin Loco Garage in Queensland. You’ll more photos at the feature on Miss Strawberry Sweet.
Photos by Rod Cole; story by Nathan
