Roland Sands Design has a new 2007 catalog out and he has some interesting parts and pieces for sale. There’s a Vintage Body Kit for changing a Harley Davidson Softail into a customized Bobber. Most of it looks pretty much bolt on, you just have to paint, powder coat or chrome it to your taste. Drag Specialties has a bike in their current magazine ads with all of the RSD parts installed or you can see one in the RSD catalog. It’s not a bad looking Bobber and is miles away from the stock Harley without any welding or custom metal working skills required. He also has various engine covers available from the Glory Stomper, another of his well known customs.
More of the big name custom builders should do this but they might even take it a step further. Sure, they sell some fenders here or tanks there and other odds and ends but it seems to me there would be a pretty sizable market for complete sets of parts, even up to and including everything necessary to duplicate the original custom bike.
Some customs have a bit of intricate engineering or novel solutions to fitting parts, but once it’s done, the hard work is over. Showing the finished bike at a custom show may win the builder an award or get him some exposure on TV or in the magazines but no matter how many times most of us look at the finished product, there’s no way we’re going to retire to the garage and build one. If you lack the skills, you can certainly learn over time, but most guys have a job to go to or business to run and becoming a master metal worker just isn’t in the cards. But with all of the parts available, lots of folks who are reasonably adept could convert their stock bike into a radical custom. If the frame was included as one of the parts, you could build the whole bike.
Custom builders may want to keep some of their bikes as exclusive one offs and they certainly can sell complete turn key bikes but what if every so often they build a radical custom, showing off their best ideas and skills, not some watered down bike with a few bolt ons but a real example of their best work, and then, after some time to show it off a bit, they produce complete kits.
Some of the bikes that win the various Biker Build Off competitions around the world are certainly well known among the interested biker community and they often make their way to ebay. The exclusivity of the champion bike should lead to a big payday, right? Well, sometimes it doesn’t happen. Then, the builder has a high cost bike and it’s hard to recover the investment. Turn that bike into something others can build themselves and the money comes back, maybe many times over, but there’s a catch.
The catch is, lots of folks who would want to build that bike in pieces don’t have unlimited funds to build a lot of garage jewelry so the bike has to be something that actually functions as a real motorcycle. Some bikes that win the build offs would not work in the real world so those would not sell in pieces or kits, either. If a custom builder designs with the end in mind … eventual kit sales … he might exercise his skills in a completely different direction. Roland Sands has a head start on some of the other builders because his bikes seem more real world friendly but there are some others who can do this work, too. I can also think of a few that would have a real hard time making the transition.
I wonder if a few builders would like to make the leap to kit sales. Which custom bikes would you like to see as a kit you could build? Which builders would you like to see offering complete parts packages? It’s something to think about.
Link: Roland Sands Design
F451 says
I’ll pass…I’ve seen the PM shop, store, etc. and it is not my cup of tea. Sorry, if you want a custom, then you should build it yourself from the ideas that you have versus someone else’s “kit.” That’s the only way it’s real, and the only way you’ll get true respect.
hoyt says
assembling a kit bike together after painting it yourself won’t garner any respect?
kneeslider says
Suppose you’re not concerned about “respect” and you just want a really cool bike you can’t afford any other way and your personal skill set can’t build from scratch? I don’t get into the “respect” thing myself, I just like bikes.
F451 says
Too much hype for me. Roland been “trying” to imitate (when I state “others” I mean the persona of the build builder—one comes readily to mind) others for years now. Now, Roland’s father I have a lot respect for…that’s a different story. IMHO this is merely a business venture to capitalize on a market that may very well be changing on a dying “lifestyle” trend—nothing else.
Sean says
Surely “custom” means exactly that, custom tailored to your individual tastes? Not generic run-of-the-mill stuff. As interesting and exciting as the possibilities may be, selling kits for someone to recreate a custom turns that custom into prototype, and the kitted up bike into a production run. A lot of car modders I know have had custom bodykits, bonnets, spoilers etc done and they’ve had that custom done because it’s theirs, all theirs and nothing but theirs. It’s less about respect, and more about how badly you want something unique compared to something cool. I mean hey, if it’s cool then it’s cool and there’s no arguing there, but if it’s the same thing everyone else has, to me it would suddenly become very uncool. It all depends on your funds, on your skills and on the look you want. Each to his own, I guess…
kneeslider says
OK, let’s see if I can make my point another way. Consider homebuilt aircraft. Many homebuilders can put together fairly complex airplane kits which are not cheap, look great when finished, perform very well but which they may be unable to design from scratch and without some prebuilt parts, probably not be able to make everything on their own without great difficulty. Getting a group of these builders together at Oshkosh during the annual EAA fly-in doesn’t make them feel like they’re flying something generic, but instead, they feel they’re part of a select group of builders who put in the time and effort to finish something fairly rare and yes, cool, and they swap stories and become friends.
Most any motorcycle would be a lot easier to build than any airplane kit but if the original custom builder kept the price up a bit and there was still some work to do, you would be in little danger of seeing yourself on every corner.
Granted, this would not appeal to everyone, but forget big V-twins for a minute and suppose someone like Jean-Luc Borgetto came up with a kit so you could recreate the MV Agusta 500 he built, don’t you think a few guys might take a shot at something like that? If you knew someone else who was building one, you might call each other if you ran into some particular difficulty. Once finished, builders might meet once a year and show off their bikes and compare notes and help the new builders just starting out.
Maybe it’s just me, but I like the idea.
chris says
or maybe just a small production run? maybe 50 units? surely you could make enough money selling fifty $10,000+ kits to recover the cost of the original custom. and 50 is a really small number when you consider how many people in the country own/want a bike. you’re still cool because whenever someone sees YOUR bike, it’ll probably be the first and only one they ever see.
Sean says
Keeping it a limited production run would help to maintain the uniqueness, and I’m all for custom bike builders to make kits, to make other bikes as unique, cool or personal as you want. In fact, I’m more than all for it. As long as these kits have interchangeable parts, keeping it fresher than if it was one kit that you couldn’t chop and change. I mean, rather than having Option A, you could have the Option A tank, with Option C fairing, Option L forks sitting on an Option P frame. To me, that would keep everything very, very unique, and if you like a particular bike that blew past you on your way to work, then you can find the parts it had and make it up yourself.
I agree with the homebuilt aircraft analogy, and perhaps I had the wrong idea when I wrote earlier. I’m thinking the endless chrome plated cruisers, and how after a while they tend to look the same. I for one would love a chance to head down to the local bike shop, order some parts and after a frenzied afternoon of bolting on parts, stand back and admire something that is mine, oh mine. If it’s me, if it makes me smile when I jump on, then I’m (obviously) happy.
chris says
oooh, that’s good. like ordering each course of a meal from a menu! imagine a website where you select a frame, move to engine, swingarm, forks, fairing, tank, wheels, etc. then someone on the other end makes sure all the stuff you need to make it a cohesive bike is shipped along, a custom set of instructions for your particular bike are printed up and sent along with the kit. boutique bikes. for the slightly smaller bank account set. anyone wanna start a business?
Sean says
I’m in, got any experience with the fabrication of every aspect of a bike? This sort of takes the idea away from the “kits”, where there is a set kit that can’t be chopped and changed to your specifications. Personally, I think that a website of made-to-order custom bikes would be awesome, and in a way puts me in mind of any number of “street” car racing games nowadays. Most have the option to put on aftermarket parts, but the only “street” game I’ve found that caters for bikes has very little in the way of customising. I think this is to do with the perceived idea that bikers like to keep everything stock, with maybe a bit of paint and graphics changeovers.
With the advent of more companies that do this, I imagine that there would be an increasing number of companies who cater for piece-by-piece modification. That would increase interest, and perhaps even bring some car modifiers into the mix. And yes, I know that there are a lot of businesses who do this style of piece by piece bike modification. But I hate to say it, if their websites are anything to go by, the products aint much to write home about. Call me a crazy kid, but made to order bikes sound like one heck of an idea.