Photo: Vagabund
The European custom motorcycle industry is a very peculiar one. Sure, there are shops there that deal with Harleys and custom frames as well, but there are more organizations than anywhere else that are in the business of customizing motorcycles others would immediately discard.
One such shop is called Vagabund and it is based in Austria. The group’s approach when it comes to custom bike building involves old motorcycles made by companies that are not usually favorite targets for such work: BMW, Yamaha, or Honda.
These machines, obviously more famous in Europe than in the U.S., get another shot at stardom thanks to modern technologies, including 3D printing. And most of the times, the results are spectacular.
Take this 1993 BMW R100 R. Part of a bloodline that was born in 1976 and was to end just three years after this here model was originally produced, it got a serious makeover at the hands of the Austrians, who seem not to have left any part untouched.
Made to be completely street legal, at least in the country it originated from, the Vagabund V03 as it’s now called rides on a newly-designed, welded rear frame. The wheels, the original ones, have been retained, but got powder coated to be in tune with the blackness on the rest of the build.
At the front, there’s a handmade aluminum headlight housing with integrated warning lights, shortened handlebars, and new signals.
As for the engine that powers the whole thing, it’s the same the bike originally had on (that’s a 980 cm3 good for 60 hp), only serviced and of course painted black.
As some of the other builds we talked about as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage did, Vagabund's V03 was quickly sold to a customer and no, this is not a series production run, so we’ll not see any more of them on the roads.
These machines, obviously more famous in Europe than in the U.S., get another shot at stardom thanks to modern technologies, including 3D printing. And most of the times, the results are spectacular.
Take this 1993 BMW R100 R. Part of a bloodline that was born in 1976 and was to end just three years after this here model was originally produced, it got a serious makeover at the hands of the Austrians, who seem not to have left any part untouched.
Made to be completely street legal, at least in the country it originated from, the Vagabund V03 as it’s now called rides on a newly-designed, welded rear frame. The wheels, the original ones, have been retained, but got powder coated to be in tune with the blackness on the rest of the build.
At the front, there’s a handmade aluminum headlight housing with integrated warning lights, shortened handlebars, and new signals.
As for the engine that powers the whole thing, it’s the same the bike originally had on (that’s a 980 cm3 good for 60 hp), only serviced and of course painted black.
As some of the other builds we talked about as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage did, Vagabund's V03 was quickly sold to a customer and no, this is not a series production run, so we’ll not see any more of them on the roads.
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