The former airplane and boat builder's artistic take on custom motorcycle design
With a background in building airplanes, boats and even custom furniture, Max Hazan has an endless list of references to pull inspiration and ideas from. Through this varied experience Hazan has found motorcycles to be his be all and end all in terms of artistic medium. Using a range of materials, Hazan's custom designs achieve a beautiful balance between mechanical art and functional machine. A stunning example of which is his recently completed 1996 Royal Endfield Bullet 500. Rarely seen outside of India, the Royal Enfield is a rare find in the first place. And this one has been custom built from the ground up—from frame to every single lever and linkage—over a span of two solid months. It's something really special. While each detail is impeccable, nothing demands the attention quite like the solid wood seat. Referencing boat and furniture building techniques, the hardwood seat acts as both a beautiful place to sit as well as a rear fender, embodying the functional sculpture concept. For more insight into Hazan's design inspiration and execution, as well as a closer look at his 1996 Royal Enfield Bullet 500, see Hazan's recent interview with industrial designer Dave Mucci for his motorcycle and design blog Moto-Mucci. Images courtesy of David Hans Cooke and David Browning
A Royal Enfield featured in newspaper's "Shock Issue."
The Royal Enfield motorcycle roaring out of the front page of Britain's Daily Mirror on Feb. 9, 1961 helped plant in the public mind the image of leather clad demons risking their lives — and yours — on the open road.
"Suicide Club! — it devours 130,000 members every year!" the headline shouted.
"The paper focused on the Ace Cafe in particular and featured some of the regular visitors," author Alastair Walker wrote in his book "The Cafe Racer Phenomenon."
In 1964, the British movie "The Leather Boys" followed the Daily Mirror line. Again shot largely at the Ace Cafe on London's North Circular Road, the movie depicted motorcycle racing that started right out of the parking lot.
News coverage of Mods and Rockers chasing one another around British seaside resorts in 1964 connected the dots for a worldwide audience. I saw the Mods and Rockers go at it on the television in my house at the time, and I lived in Los Angeles!
The Suicide Club Royal Enfield still frequents the Ace Cafe. Francois Thomas photographed it there and posted a photo of the bike with the Ace's Mark Wilsmore on Flickr.
Royal Enfield Constellation WUL 798, proudly on display at the Ace Cafe.
Wilsmore identified it to him as the very same motorcycle shown in the newspaper, and it still bears the pedestrian slicer WUL 798, as in the paper. The 700cc twin-cylinder Constellation is rusty now, but easy to imagine in its days of glory.
I photographed the motorcycle at the Ace myself while in London in September to see the new Royal Enfield Continental GT.
Cafe racers old and new, they make a nice pair.
The Suicide Club Constellation with the new Royal Enfield Continental GT.
There are little hidden treasures of automotive culture wherever you look in Japan. Sometimes they’re right in front of your eyes and you don’t even notice them. This Citroën H Van is a good example; I must have probably seen this van three times, if not more, sitting outside either the Liberty Walk shop or the LB Works garage.
With so many crazy widebody exotics and Kato’s kyusha rides sitting around the place, the little van was something my brain just didn’t acknowledge. It happens, trust me. But then, after seeing it sitting in the back of some of my shots, I made a mental note that next time I would be back down in Nagoya, I would at least have to do a little spotlight on it.
You can probably call these H Vans the French version of the VW Kombi; I know it’s a rather loose comparison, but you get what I’m saying. They’re a little bit bigger, were mainly built for commercial use and didn’t even come close to matching the popularity of the rear-engine Vee-Dubs. But it’s precisely this that makes Liberty’s H Van so special: its rarity. You hardly see these things in Europe, let alone in Japan, and this one has been given the Kato touch with a full flat-green coat of paint, air suspension and wire mesh wheels that look like they came off Snoop Dogg’s Coupe de Ville!
The story behind the van is pretty simple: it was once used by a mobile food vendor and once up for sale, Kato-san came across it and bought it straight away seeing the potential in it. Once customized, it was used a few times at Liberty Walk events and meets, as it’s great for carrying stuff around in style. Unfortunately, with all the projects Kato has been up to these last couple of years, the Citroën hauler has been left sitting in front of the LB Works workshop awaiting its much needed overhaul to bring it back up to usable condition.
I just find these sort of vehicles to be little glimpses of a bygone area, when vehicles were put together with so much simplicity and curious touches. Like a lot of cars back in the days, the H Van is equipped with suicide doors, which actually make it so easy to swing your body into the driver’s seat.
Check out the door handles. If they were all polished up, they wouldn’t look out of place in a period home and those hinges as are agricultural as they come. It’s these small details that help give these older vehicles character, and there are plenty more to be found in the interior.
The H Van was a little part-borrowing exercise, so most of what you see in there was taken from other Citroën production cars like the Traction Avant – things that included its engine and transmission. The engine sits right in between the passengers and drives the front wheels. The air suspension controls are laid out on the passenger side of the dashboard and lift only the front wheels; the rear just sits plain low.
The rear opens up with a main gate that swings upwards and a pair of little doors below it – perfect for what the van was used for in one of its previous lives! In fact it still has a ventilation opening next to the high-mount French number plate. For the time being, it’s doubled up as a little storage unit, most of the cargo space taken up with a variety of things from old tyres to boxes and spare parts.
The corrugated panels are what really make the H Van instantly recognizable, a then easy and cheap way to make a flat sheet of metal more rigid without added strengthening. It’s probably the last vehicle you would expect to find in Japan, or at Liberty Walk for that matter, but its charm and potential were obviously too much for Kato-san to resist. Let’s hope it’s put back on the road soon; it’s already got the overfenders and the right sort of stance so it can really wear the LB Works name with pride!
To photograph a current record-holder at the Nordschleife is a rare opportunity. Stefan Bogner had two in front of the lens: the new Porsche 918 Spyder and Stefan Bellof’s Porsche 956, for 30 years an unbeaten record-holder at the ‘Green Hell’…
The lap time that Stefan Bellof set in the Porsche 956 on 28 May 1983 is unbeaten to this day.
It’s hard to believe, but the lap time that Stefan Bellof set on 28 May 1983, in the Porsche 956, is unbeaten to this day: 6 minutes and 11.13 seconds. Neither the driver nor the team had expected to achieve this incredible result, in qualifying for the 1,000km race. But the phenomenal Group C racing car with its 630HP six-cylinder turbo boxer engine, and a racing weight of just 850kg, managed the near-impossible – even the average speed of more than 200km/h is still regarded as the fastest ever measured on the Nordschleife. No wonder: the Porsche 956 and its evolution version, the Porsche 962, are arguably the greatest endurance prototypes in history.
Meet the legends
You don’t come across such legends every day – and certainly not at the place of their greatest victory. The Munich-based photographer and creator of ‘Curves’ magazine Stefan Bogner was at the Nürburgring when, shortly before sunset, he came across the Rothmans-liveried 956 in the paddock. An English collector rebuilt the record-breaking car, chassis number 007, for Bellof’s former teammate, Derek Bell, to drive at the Avd Oldtimer Grand Prix in the summer of 2013 – the 30th anniversary of setting the lap record. And now it's back there. Having seen the car in the paddock, Bogner convinced the owner to bring the Porsche back to the track next morning for his photoshoot – with none other than Hans-Joachim Stuck at the wheel.
But Bogner has another ace up his sleeve: the Porsche 918 Spyder. On 4 September 2013, Porsche works driver Marc Lieb recorded a lap time in the hybrid supercar of just under seven minutes – which enabled the 918 to hold the title of ‘fastest production sports car’. The record car in Martini livery is also at the Ring, and joins the 956 on track. The asphalt is wet from the rain, the fog hangs low in the woods, but the sun occasionally breaks through. Bogner is enthusiastic about the unearthly atmosphere of the ‘Green Hell’, hanging out of the camera car to capture the very special moment.
An unforgettable moment
In companionable harmony, the two record-breaking cars – the legend of 1983 and the world-leading sports car of 2013 – peacefully enjoy a joint victory lap on the Ring. But the spectacle is soon over: by 8:30, the Porsche duo is back in the paddock, the fog has lifted and the sun dries the asphalt – free to welcome the next challenger for the Nordschleife lap record.
Stefan Bogner’s new work, ‘Tracks – Nürburgring Nordschleife’, is a veritable bible for the ‘Green Hell’. The book is published by Delius Klasing and includes impressive photographs of the track, detailed elevation profiles and overviews of each section, and a foreword by Hans-Joachim Stuck. More information at www.delius-klasing.de.
With a background in building airplanes, boats and even custom furniture, Max Hazan has an endless list of references to pull inspiration and ideas from. Through this varied experience Hazan has found motorcycles to be his be all and end all in terms of artistic medium. Using a range of materials, Hazan's custom designs achieve a beautiful balance between mechanical art and functional machine. A stunning example of which is his recently completed 1996 Royal Endfield Bullet 500. 
Rarely seen outside of India, the Royal Enfield is a rare find in the first place. And this one has been custom built from the ground up—from frame to every single lever and linkage—over a span of two solid months. It's something really special. While each detail is impeccable, nothing demands the attention quite like the solid wood seat. Referencing boat and furniture building techniques, the hardwood seat acts as both a beautiful place to sit as well as a rear fender, embodying the functional sculpture concept.
For more insight into Hazan's design inspiration and execution, as well as a closer look at his 1996 Royal Enfield Bullet 500, see Hazan's recent interview with industrial designer Dave Mucci for his motorcycle and design blog Moto-Mucci. 
