Harley-Davidson Choo Choo Comes with an Iveco Truck Turbocharger

The motorcycle, aptly named Choo Choo, was the dealer’s entry in the King of Kings competition. Created by Harley to stir the imagination of its international dealers, King of Kings ended in April with a Mexican build named Apex Predator being crowned ruler of them all.

There were 15 entries in all, and as you can see, you can find some crazy ideas among them.

According to Sykes, the 1200 pictured in the gallery above was inspired by “some old pictures of vintage Harleys.” We are not being told what those Harleys were, but here is the result.

The Choo Choo name was apparently inspired by the sound the turbocharger makes. The hardware is a HX25 generally used for Iveco trucks. The turbo has been of course heavily modified to fit in nicely with the Harley, and it was then fitted on the exhaust manifold and tied to an S&S Super E carburetor.

“We put it on because we could,” said the owner of the dealership, John Sykes. “Doing such a thing is a different branch for us to go out on; Sykes Harley’s custom arm is Speed & Custom, where we do plenty of custom but not so much speed. So a turbo it was. But then we had to make sure such a modern component fitted in with the vintage theme. It wasn’t easy but the result is… pretty good.”

We are not being told how much the performance of the bike changed as a result.

In the end, the Choo Choo did not manage to win King of Kings, but it is here to show that there’s virtually no limit to how a bike can be made to look.