Your future 'classics' and 'restomods' ?

[weeksy]

Seeing the 'restomod' thing being thrown about quite a lot lately had me thinking.

"When we're another 15-20-55 years down the line, what will WE want to see as a restomod?"

For me, the first at the top of my list is the KTM 990 Superduke R. These bikes really were/are the highlight of bikes for me and incredible to ride, raw, awesome things, but they also hold their condition well, apart from a few issues. But they're 10+ years old now, so half-way to being a classic i guess.

[Ditchfinder]

In 20 years time will people just be ripping engines out and replacing with battery packs?

[weeksy]

In 20 years time will people just be ripping engines out and replacing with battery packs?

I'd like to think not. I'm still hoping there's a 'new' fuel that working in internal combustion engines but runs cleanly, so it's still allowing a motorbike to be a motorbike.

But there's no requirement that a restomod has to actually fire up

[demographic]

KX 500 (90 model).
GSXR 750 Slingshot (89 model).

I had another 90 KX 500 (well three quarters but it was the important three quarters that are hard to get hold of) and I kind of planned going a bit wild with that one and maybe doing a Roland Sands style road bike with maybe ZXR forks and 250 road race fairing.
As I already have my main one road registered I kind of planned doing the send documents in with another frame number on and then a while later another engine number thing and get it road registered that way.
Basically so I could always have one registered on the same document but it might look drastically different whenever I wanted to run the next one.
Dunno if that would have worked but neither were nicked so even if the DVLA spat the dummy there wasn't a whole lot they could complain about.
Had to flog it last year though cos I was skint so that idea's out the window and I only have one full KX 500 (and a LOT of hard to find oddball spares) left to play with.

Got to admit, this "Restomod" thing is a bit of a fashion word for what my mates have been doing as long as I can remember. Mostly just keeping old bikes going and with luck improving the odd aspect of them as money and newer parts permit.

Oh and I'm keeping the airboxes on both bikes, along with mudguards and sidepanels.

[weeksy]

Got to admit, this "Restomod" thing is a bit of a fashion word for what my mates have been doing as long as I can remember. Mostly just keeping old bikes going and with luck improving the odd aspect of them as money and newer parts permit.

Oh and I'm keeping the airboxes on both bikes, along with mudguards and sidepanels.

I agree to an extent but the restomod thing is mostly about making one of them as close to perfect but in keeping with it's period features if possible.. but it's not just keeping it running, but getting it 100%

[demographic]

Is it? Ahh, well. I'm deffo keeping the airbox and mudguards then.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

What've I got, a garage full of old shite all needing attention.

[weeksy]

What've I got, a garage full of old shite all needing attention.

But are you ever going to make them into a less shite pile ? And indeed, are they worthy of it ?

[KungFooBob]

There's a few trends at the moment.

'Restomods' taking a 70-80's bike and putting modern go faster bits on it.

'Hipster Chic' taking a resonably recent bike and making it look old and fitting a brown seat.

If we fast forward to 2020...

Restomods is going to be taking a 2000-2010 bike and putting modern go faster bits on it. I really looking forward to the GSXR1000K5 hover bike and a KTM Super Adventure with a diamond stictch brown seat.

[Supermofo]

About a year into Duke ownership I considered becoming one of those blokes who turns up to classic meetings in 2050 still riding it having owned it from new and keeping it running via numerous bodges and boring anyone in earshot about it.

I still consider this now but would mean a cheaper next bike so I can have 2.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

What've I got, a garage full of old shite all needing attention.

But are you ever going to make them into a less shite pile ? And indeed, are they worthy of it ?

A very good question, so I'll answer bike by bike, but they're all a bit cosmetically challenged

FZR400RR - all it really needs is a full front fork rebuild, it's actually rideable (and very nice to ride), I've got a spare set of forks for it that will be getting rechromed and revalved this year.
FZ750 - nothing wrong with apart from cosmetics, I've got a 911cc race engine for it that will go in when the 750 engine expires
Z1170R - nothing fundamentally wrong with it, needs carbs setting up and a set of longer forks to cure the lack of ground clearance / tea trolley handling it currently has (caused by FZR1000 forks that are 50mm shorter than the original forks)
RD350YPVS - cosmetic sort out and putting back together, I'll give it a top end rebuild while the engine is out of the frame

So none of them need anything major, I've got most of the parts to do all the work, it's just finding the time to do it, work has been incredibly busy for the last year and I've been riding my EMTB rather than doing anything with motorcycles, I've also got a ton of DIY jobs to do on my house.

[Skub]

I hadn't heard the term Restomod before,but I reckon this old girl may be a likely subject.