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Harley-Davidson John Player Is a Modified, Very Expensive Cigar on Two Wheels

Back in the day when advertising for tobacco was still allowed in all its forms, we got to see cigarettes and cigarette brands all over the place. We had them on TV and on the billboards deployed everywhere, we had them in cartoons as tobacco companies were trying to draw in customers from a very young age, and of course, we had them on the cars and motorcycles that raced around the tracks of the world.
Harley-Davidson John Player 7 photos
Photo: NLC
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The tobacco industry’s involvement with racing goes back a long time. As per the National Library of Medicine, Formula 1, the most notorious global sport sponsored by such companies, first got involved with them in 1972, when Philip Morris became a British Racing Motors (BRM) team partner. NASCAR’s top series became the Winston Cup a year prior to that, and from the early 1970s and well into the 2000s, tobacco had been a constant presence on racing cars and motorcycles.

As far as John Player is concerned (a company now owned by Imperial Brands), its name started being used on racing cars in 1968, when it began sponsoring Team Lotus in the Tasman series. On the motorcycle front, it got involved with Norton in 1971.

Unlike many other tobacco brands, John Player still pops up in the news in the automotive and related industries from time to time, thanks to various special edition models of bikes and cars that may or may not be sanctioned by the companies who made them. The Harley-Davidson we have here is not official, but still cool.

Originally a Breakout, it was transformed by German garage No Limit Custom (NLC) into something that’s now called Harley-Davidson John Player. It’s a heavily modified two-wheeler sporting custom bits that amount to over $9,000, not including the man-hours.

The shop gifted the bike with the usual pieces of hardware that go onto a custom ride, including extra body parts. The Breakout now features new front and rear fenders, but also a fuel tank cover attached by means of gluing to the original one. An engine spoiler now covers the front of the original powertrain, which was also enhanced with the use of an aftermarket exhaust, whose price is not included in the total we mentioned above.

The single most expensive part used by NLC on the Breakout is the single-sided swingarm, made from aluminum. It alone costs over $6,000 on the garage’s website.

When all the visual and mechanical upgrades were done with, the bike was wrapped in black all over, with what appears to be gold decorations slapped here and there for effect.

NLC does not say who the bike was made for, nor are we given any indication as to its total cost.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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