DP Customs '95 Harley Sportster - “del Rey”

Anyone that has studied the creative process will tell you that the world's great artists eventually develop a style that is simultaneously totally original, yet uniquely and utterly their own. Think Kimura. Or Falcon. Or Lennon & McCartney. They seem to reach a point in their careers where they just manage to transcend their contemporaries and take flight. After that, their work is a good as their signature or their offspring; inherently and unmistakably theirs. Looking over the shots you see here of DP Custom's lastest creation, I'm beginning to think that they, too, have taken flight. Please welcome back the brothers Del Prado, with their 6th (!) bike to make it's Pipeburn appearance - the larger than life Harley ‘del Rey.’

Any cleaner and it wouldn't be there

Here's the brother from (not) another mother, Jarrod Del Prado. “The customer on this build was, as usual, a very cool guy to work with. He shares our passion for motorsports in a big way. Vintage, current, all of it... so we decided to incorporate some of the colors of the 70's Elf F1 cars into this bike - blue, black and white.”

“His only specific requirements were that he wanted a rocker shifter and pipe wrap, otherwise he was cool with us doing what we do.” Dream customer? Check.

In typical Del Prado fashion, the colours were chose for maximum impact. “We kept everything with the paint scheme simple and bold, and finished it with matte clear. We built the rocker shifter and had it coated in black to subdue the extra length.”

We asked Jarrod to give us some specifics, just to keep the trainspotters happy. He obliged. “It's based on a 1995 1200cc Evo Sportster. We modified the frame with a stretched and lowered hardtail. We tweaked the look of the motor by powder coating the primary cover, cam cover and rocker boxes in matte black. Then we improved the performance by adding a Crane Single Fire ignition and coil, and a Big Sucker intake. On the exhaust side, Justin built a tidy equal length custom exhaust finished in white.”

“Braking performance was improved dramatically with Brembo rotors and calipers. We wrapped the 19" front and 17" rear in Pirelli Night Dragon tires. As always, Justin proves that clean wiring is an art form - everything flows beautifully. We used Biltwell's aluminum throttle, Tracker handlebars, and Mushman foot pegs. The bike looks really mean, really sharp, and my bro and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out!”

Elf esteem - proud brothers, and rightly sovia PIPEBURN