If you’ve been following us these past few years, and you’ve been watching our coverage of European-made custom motorcycles, then the name Nine Hills rings a bell or two.
Based in Poland, the garage is a treasure chest of incredible and unique two-wheeled machines. Most are, as you might have noticed, based on various Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and we’ve enjoyed quite a lot of them so far.
Come November 2022 though, Nine Hills pulled the wraps off something called Liberty. Uncharacteristically, it’s not a Milwaukee-made ride, but one made over the pond, in Germany, by a company called BMW Motorrad.
The R 18 Liberty, as the bike is called post-conversion, is one of seven custom projects BMW revealed last month in its attempt to establish a stronger foothold in American territory. The Liberty seems the cleanest and simplest build of the seven shown (just compare it with the Black Jack or Isle of Man, for instance), but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.
The bike is packed with Nine Hills made-from-scratch hardware, from the fuel tank to the mud guards. Aside from fitting new parts, the shop also adapted them, but also the existing ones. This is how we got stuff like instruments integrated in the tank, and leather bits here and there.
The BMW R 18 Liberty rides on Rick's Motorcycles wheels sized 21 inches at the front and 18 inches at the rear. They get their spin from the stock engine, enhanced visually with the addition of things like CNC-milled cylinder head covers.
When all was done, the shop went for airbrush work to cover the motorcycle in elegant and beautiful shades of black and grey.
The BMW R 18 Liberty is, like all other projects shown, a one-off, but it’ll probably contribute to more and more of them seeing daylight in the near future, as the Germans are biting into the Harley pie.
Come November 2022 though, Nine Hills pulled the wraps off something called Liberty. Uncharacteristically, it’s not a Milwaukee-made ride, but one made over the pond, in Germany, by a company called BMW Motorrad.
The R 18 Liberty, as the bike is called post-conversion, is one of seven custom projects BMW revealed last month in its attempt to establish a stronger foothold in American territory. The Liberty seems the cleanest and simplest build of the seven shown (just compare it with the Black Jack or Isle of Man, for instance), but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.
The bike is packed with Nine Hills made-from-scratch hardware, from the fuel tank to the mud guards. Aside from fitting new parts, the shop also adapted them, but also the existing ones. This is how we got stuff like instruments integrated in the tank, and leather bits here and there.
The BMW R 18 Liberty rides on Rick's Motorcycles wheels sized 21 inches at the front and 18 inches at the rear. They get their spin from the stock engine, enhanced visually with the addition of things like CNC-milled cylinder head covers.
When all was done, the shop went for airbrush work to cover the motorcycle in elegant and beautiful shades of black and grey.
The BMW R 18 Liberty is, like all other projects shown, a one-off, but it’ll probably contribute to more and more of them seeing daylight in the near future, as the Germans are biting into the Harley pie.