Harley-Davidson La Esmeralda Is a Custom Chicano Mashup

As one of the largest custom shops out there, Germany's Thunderbike had no way of bypassing this. So instead of throwing one or two such conversions into the mix, for effect, it came up with an entire line of Chicano bikes. The latest entry in the family is La Esmeralda.

Based on a Harley Heritage bike, just like the other two we’ve already covered, El Divino and El Dorado, this one too makes full use of the style’s elements.

Wrapped in green with gold and silver accents, the bike uses very ornate fenders front and rear, coming from the shop’s El Dorado series and placed on top of the 23-inch front wheel and 18-inch rear one (the original ones were 16-inches across, so the change is more than visible).

The rubber on the wheel plays an important part in defining the build, with the whitewall tires perfectly matching the tone of the paint. Behind them sit brake discs from the garage’s Spoke series. According to Thunderbike, the air ride suspension system designed for La Esmeralda makes the motorcycle “one of the lowest custom bikes in our showroom.”

Close to 30 custom items were used to create his build, ranging from the ones we already mentioned to things like a modified triple tree and a special turn signal set. No modifications seem to have been made to the powerplant, though.

As for the cost, well, as usual, we have to guesstimate. In this case, simple math led us to the sum of €10,000, which is about $12,200 at the time of writing. But that only includes the cost of the parts used, not the man-hours needed to fit them together, the paint, or the base bike.