Harley-Davidson Red Baron Is a Nod to Both an Ace Pilot and a Rock Band

The Red Baron is first and foremost the fighting designation of a German pilot named Manfred von Richthofen. At a time when military aviation was just taking off, in the 1910s, he managed to rise to star status thanks to no less than 80 air-to-air combat victories, and his leadership of a fighter squadron the world of the time came to know as the Flying Circus, thanks to the bright colors that draped their combat aircraft.

Secondly, the same moniker, only translated into Spanish as Baron Rojo, designates a heavy metal band from the Iberian Peninsula, famous back in the 1980s mostly over in Europe.

Both these meanings of the phrase are celebrated on this custom Low Rider, put together from a stock machine by Spanish garage Lord Drake. And the end product makes no secret of what it’s supposed to be, because the color red is heavily spread over the bike’s body, down to the rims of the multi-spoke wheels, sized 19 inches at the front and 18 inches at the rear.

The custom has been put together by Lord Drake as a café racer, which is not something we usually get from this type of American two-wheeler, equipped with the mighty Twin Cam 88 engine. And since we mentioned the powerplant, we’ll start by telling you that, although it was left mostly stock and works from under some fancy transparent covers, it was enhanced a bit with the fitting of an S&S carburetor and air filter, but also a Vance & Hines exhaust system.

Other rather small but effective mechanical changes are the shortening of the front suspension by 3 inches, and the fitting of a new front fork and aftermarket braking hardware. Lord Drake also remade by hand the rear end of the Low Rider, including the seat, and up on the frame it fitted a modified fuel tank taken off a Sportster model.

The paint job is an obvious reference to both the flying ace and the rock band we’ve already mentioned, but it’s the German pilot who is referenced a lot on this machine. That’s because the number 80 you see featured on it is meant to represent the number of aerial wins the man scored more than a century ago.

The Harley-Davidson Red Baron was first shown back in 2013 in the U.S. (although Lord Drake is a Spanish brand, it does have a shop in Miami, and that’s where the bike was born). It quickly went to be displayed at several prestigious shows of that year (Daytona Bike Week, Rat’s Hole, Festival of Speed), but after that we’ve kind of lost track of it, and its current whereabouts are not known.