Holographic Hammer is no stranger to the custom scene, being the render-master behind many well-known custom builds. In fact, few people realise that the man behind the Hammer works as a designer from BMW Motorrad and was the designer of the infamous and very beautiful Concept Ninety that Roland Sands went on to build for BMW. Anyway, he’s been teasing us with gorgeous bike designs for a long time now, so we were very keen to see what an influential taste-maker would do with his own personal ride, the Suzuki Tzar… And, we wanted to hear about it in his own words…
Being a motorcycle freak, what could be any better than building your own custom bike ? But before getting my hands dirty, I had to figure out what I exactly wanted: – A good steel frame for the stiffness, but it also had to run under the tank and not be perimetric to get a more classic look. – An oil-cooled engine because it is simple and reliable. – A big bore inline 4 cylinders to get decent torque and power. – Twin shocks for its beauty. – and all of it in a “modern” base to be ridden everyday.
After some quick research, only two bikes fit the bill, The Kawasaki ZRX 1200 and the Suzuki 1200 Inazuma. I went for the Suzuki simply because the tank looked better to me. I bought the donor a few weeks later and started to tear it apart. At that point I was very skeptical, the stock bike was miles away from what I had in mind… This bike is a light custom, the goal was to get the maximal impact with a tight budget so it was all about updating the chassis in some areas and reworking the all tail to get a proper cafe-racer fly line.
I have been maintaining and working on all my own bikes for years, but I didn’t have the skills to do this, but luckily my best friend (Hugo Lambert) is a race mechanic and took care of the proper custom elements. We started to swap the front end for a 2006 GSXR 1000 fork and brakes, combined with LSL clip-ons, an Acewell speedo and a pair Braking PR19 master cylinders. The subframe has been shorten by 30 cms and totally reworked to place the battery and the CPU under the seat. The engine was fitted with K&N filters, bigger exhaust pipes with a ZARD silencer, a modified ignition finger and a pair of Yoshimura camshafts that brought the torque up to 13.5 Mkg and the power to 160 Hp. The major components were powder coated black, and we finished the bodywork with a Barry Sheene’s 1975 RG500 replica paint job.
If you still have no idea who Holographic Hammer is check him out on Facebook, but here’s a little more info from the horses mouth: Building a custom bike takes a lot of time and money, as a designer I realised that the first idea is rarely the best, perfection comes with exploring different options and trying unusual things. All my friends ride or work in the custom motorcycle business and I was always around them to quickly photoshop their garage builds, and make them so logos. That is the all meaning of Holographic Hammer, a digital tool helping and simplifying the manual labour.
I am convinced that doing a sketch before building helps to get the global proportion right and stay on track while doing it, because you can easily get lost redoing the same part again and again until it works. It doesn’t matter if the bike is gonna be built or if it’s just about making a cool picture, I am always having fun drawing custom bikes for friends, and that is how I ended up sketching for El Solitario MC, Untitled Motorcycles, Fuel Bespoke, Icon 1000, The Lucky Cat garage and Derestricted. If you would like to visualize your dream custom bike or simply see some cool shit? Make sure you check Holographic Hammer on Facebook and I will be very happy to to sketch it up for you!
As some engineers say; “Measure twice. Cut once.” We’d take it one step further when it comes to building a custom bike… Plan your build with some sketches, even on the back of a napkin, and you are less likely to end up with some weird Frankenstein’s Monster build… See more from Holographic Hammer Here.
