Photo: Hiromitsu Yasui
Even a bland GL400 can morph into an extraordinary machine when it’s being customized by the right pair of hands.
Tokyo-based Wedge Motorcycle is the brainchild of Takashi Nihira – an illustrious craftsman who seems rather keen on handling most aspects of his builds in-house. The project we’ll be analyzing in the following paragraphs was no exception, and it all started with a stock 1981 variant of Honda’s GL400 Wing family.
If you’ve never heard of this particular nameplate before, that’s because it was only available on the Japanese market. In essence, the machine we’re referring to is the GL1000 Gold Wing’s smaller and less imposing cousin, though it actually shares a huge chunk of its DNA with the Honda CX500.
Aiming to create a groovy head-turner with oodles of cafe racer flair, Wedge Motorcycle’s solo mastermind kicked things off in the chassis department. Up front, he proceeded to install the repurposed wheel hub and forks of a Yamaha SR400, along with a single Sunstar brake rotor that’s been mated to a four-piston Brembo caliper.
On the other end, you’ll find a two-piston caliper biting what used to be a CB500’s front disc, and the whole shebang is placed on a GL1000-sourced hub. To round out the footwear mods in style, Takashi laced everything up to a premium set of D.I.D rims wrapped in Pirelli Phantom Sportscomp rubber.
After he’d converted the donor’s rear suspension anatomy to a monoshock setup, the Japanese moto doctor busied himself with manufacturing a custom loop-type subframe from scratch. He then welded this item onto the GL400’s main skeleton, topping it off with a cafe racer-esque tail section, bespoke upholstery, and aftermarket lighting.
Moving northward, we notice a handmade fuel tank working in unison with the new tail to bring about a perfectly straight bone line. A Mooneyes headlamp was mounted up front, and the cockpit area received clip-on handlebars and an inconspicuous digital speedometer from Motogadget. Lastly, the bike’s V-twin engine got treated to custom velocity stacks and one gorgeous two-into-two exhaust, thus concluding Nihira-san's bewildering makeover.
If you’ve never heard of this particular nameplate before, that’s because it was only available on the Japanese market. In essence, the machine we’re referring to is the GL1000 Gold Wing’s smaller and less imposing cousin, though it actually shares a huge chunk of its DNA with the Honda CX500.
Aiming to create a groovy head-turner with oodles of cafe racer flair, Wedge Motorcycle’s solo mastermind kicked things off in the chassis department. Up front, he proceeded to install the repurposed wheel hub and forks of a Yamaha SR400, along with a single Sunstar brake rotor that’s been mated to a four-piston Brembo caliper.
On the other end, you’ll find a two-piston caliper biting what used to be a CB500’s front disc, and the whole shebang is placed on a GL1000-sourced hub. To round out the footwear mods in style, Takashi laced everything up to a premium set of D.I.D rims wrapped in Pirelli Phantom Sportscomp rubber.
After he’d converted the donor’s rear suspension anatomy to a monoshock setup, the Japanese moto doctor busied himself with manufacturing a custom loop-type subframe from scratch. He then welded this item onto the GL400’s main skeleton, topping it off with a cafe racer-esque tail section, bespoke upholstery, and aftermarket lighting.
Moving northward, we notice a handmade fuel tank working in unison with the new tail to bring about a perfectly straight bone line. A Mooneyes headlamp was mounted up front, and the cockpit area received clip-on handlebars and an inconspicuous digital speedometer from Motogadget. Lastly, the bike’s V-twin engine got treated to custom velocity stacks and one gorgeous two-into-two exhaust, thus concluding Nihira-san's bewildering makeover.
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