The last incarnation of the Honda Dominator engine ended up in the short lived FMX650, which Honda called the ‘Funmoto’. With half the weight, a rear wheel bias riding position and a free breathing engine, it’s a name that is much better suited to this, Sameiros Motor’s S1.
Sameiros Motors was conceived by brothers Manolo & João in Viana do Castelo, Northern Portugal. For years they had been dreaming of starting up their own custom bike building business, and in 2013 the dream became reality. The Honda Dominator based S1 is the first proper Sameiros Motors project to roll out of the workshop, and is soon to be followed by the S2 which will be a Kawasaki Zephyr 750 based special.
The brothers take care of the design of the bikes themselves, and use local workshops for different parts of the build. They stress that ‘local’ is the key, as they like to oversee every part of the build personally, so that the end result meets their self confessed perfectionist standards.
Aside from the engine, the main frame and the back wheel, nothing of the original Dominator remains. The front wheel was swapped for an 18 ” to make the bike sit more horizontally. The rear frame is one piece and was specially built to house the battery box, ignition, light, seat support and space for all the electrics. The exhaust system was custom made by the brothers to provide what they describe as a “spectacular sound” aided no doubt by the Wrenchmonkee’s Shorty Muffler.
The air filter box was removed and replaced with a filter cone. The fuel tank is a 1952 Terrot which was difficult to find and even harder to adapt to the frame, but after many hours of cutting welding and cursing, it went on, and looks like it was always meant to be there. The engine itself was perfect (there’s a reason that old lump lived on for so long in the Honda range) so aside from some basic maintenance, it was left alone.
Manolo & Joao’s nickname for the S1 is, ‘Lose the Wheels’. We think that might translate as, ‘when you stick it in first and open the throttle, it goes like stink’. The good news is that ‘Lose the Wheels’ is up for sale, so if you fancy blatting off down the road on the back wheel of the real Funmoto, Email - sameirosmotors@gmail.com or look up Sameiros Motors on Facebook.
