CAFÉ RACER 76: THE VERDE – KAWASAKI ESTRELLA 250 ’15 by Studio Motor

Written by Donny Ariyanto

We think that custom bike builds generally come in two forms. There are those built to adhere to a particular style or genre such as Cafe Racer or Chopper that feature all the “required” modifications and design elements to be considered a correct representation of that style. Then there’s the builds that are created purely as a form self expression. Both of these approaches share similarities, but the big difference is that a bike built as an expression of personal style gives its builder the freedom to do what ever they want. It was happened to our latest build, based on the bike that have a small population in Indonesia. Our customer needed to re-design his bike into Cafe Racer style, and for the first time we got a chance to build 2015 Kawasaki Estrella 250 as a donor.

We worked with the bikes owner to design a cafe racer based on the Kawasaki Estrella 250 mixing retro styling with modern engineering. The first step was the removal of the factory bodywork to replaced the original bodywork, handcrafted a new tank, tail and half fairing out of 1.2mm steel. Finished in metallic, candy green and classic white with black and gold stripes on the tank and tail it’s more suited to the bike than the factory tank ever was and features a handmade aluminum fuel cap. The only modification to the frame came in the sub frame, changed an original sub frame with a new one used 1 inch seamless pipe. Why we did that? Cafe Racer need a flat looks from tank to tail. For a more retro look the stock wheels was replaced with a TK Japan spoke wheels 18X2.50 inch and 18X3.00 inch for front and rear and then treated to a set of Shinko SR777 110/70-18 & 120/70-18. An original rear shock was swapped with 360 mm YSS Z-Series shock. Finally, cool stuff custom exhaust fabbed up some waste gas tubes that not only sounded boss, but also added a little more urgency to the Estrella’s rather humble horse powers.

So…which way is better? Neither, but if we’ve learn anything from building bikes it’s that personal touches are what really connect you to your bike. People will always have opinions, good and bad, but at the end of the day it’s your bike, not theirs, so have some fun with it… !