Photo: Kodlin Custom
At the end of last year, German bike maker BMW Motorrad started rolling out a series of custom motorcycles based on the mighty and still new R 18 cruiser. The bikes were not put together by BMW itself, but by a series of custom garages across Europe who wanted to promote the ride as a Harley-Davidson contender.
One of these garages belongs to Fred Kodlin. The build he proposed for BMW was called Heavy Duty, and it looked a lot like a highly customized… Harley bagger.
Kodlin is a name you might have heard about before. He started customizing two-wheelers back in the 1980s, and in 2007 he became the first non-American to be inducted into the International Master Bike Builders Association (IMBBA) Hall of Fame.
He usually likes to build motorcycles from scratch and, when he's not, the parts he makes get featured on the builds of some other custom shop out there. When it comes to his own builds, a custom frame with a Harley-Davidson engine and a body to remember is what we usually get to see.
As we're expanding our reach into the world of custom motorcycles, we'll be talking quite a bit about Kodlin from now on as well. And we'll start with the build we have here, called Daytona.
The impressive machine is built around a custom frame made by Kodlin himself. Inside the frame, a Harley-sourced Milwaukee-Eight engine sits. Its stock size was increased to 124ci, and even if we're not given any numbers to fall back on, it's probably a very impressive beast in this respect.
There are two things that catch the eye the most about this bike. The first is the ten-spoke front wheel, which measures no less than 30 inches in size and was produced by a crew called Metalsport.
By contrast, the wheel at the rear is invisible, and that's owed to the massive body that was slapped around the frame. All of it is of Kodlin make, and it includes everything from massive fender up front to the hard bags at the rear.
Being a bike built from the ground up means pretty much all of the parts that went into making it had to be sourced from somewhere. And that somewhere was Kodlin Custom itself, who made and installed the front fork for the massive front wheel, the air filter and exhaust system that go over the engine, and the handlebar up front.
Other shops contributed to the ride too, with Performance Machine supplying the grips and fittings, and Arlen Ness the two mirrors.
The Daytona, as this custom bike is called, is an older Kodlin build that is presently listed with no information on its whereabouts and cost.
Kodlin is a name you might have heard about before. He started customizing two-wheelers back in the 1980s, and in 2007 he became the first non-American to be inducted into the International Master Bike Builders Association (IMBBA) Hall of Fame.
He usually likes to build motorcycles from scratch and, when he's not, the parts he makes get featured on the builds of some other custom shop out there. When it comes to his own builds, a custom frame with a Harley-Davidson engine and a body to remember is what we usually get to see.
As we're expanding our reach into the world of custom motorcycles, we'll be talking quite a bit about Kodlin from now on as well. And we'll start with the build we have here, called Daytona.
The impressive machine is built around a custom frame made by Kodlin himself. Inside the frame, a Harley-sourced Milwaukee-Eight engine sits. Its stock size was increased to 124ci, and even if we're not given any numbers to fall back on, it's probably a very impressive beast in this respect.
There are two things that catch the eye the most about this bike. The first is the ten-spoke front wheel, which measures no less than 30 inches in size and was produced by a crew called Metalsport.
By contrast, the wheel at the rear is invisible, and that's owed to the massive body that was slapped around the frame. All of it is of Kodlin make, and it includes everything from massive fender up front to the hard bags at the rear.
Being a bike built from the ground up means pretty much all of the parts that went into making it had to be sourced from somewhere. And that somewhere was Kodlin Custom itself, who made and installed the front fork for the massive front wheel, the air filter and exhaust system that go over the engine, and the handlebar up front.
Other shops contributed to the ride too, with Performance Machine supplying the grips and fittings, and Arlen Ness the two mirrors.
The Daytona, as this custom bike is called, is an older Kodlin build that is presently listed with no information on its whereabouts and cost.
Google News