HOT !!! Plaza Francia - La Mano Encima

Découvrez le 1er extrait de l'album de PLAZA FRANCIA le projet TANGO interprété par Catherine RINGER Disponible Maintenant :http://po.st/plazafrancia7

Snapshot, 1967: Johnny Hallyday fires up the Mustang

Think of an internationally famous rock ’n’ roll star who isn’t from an English-speaking country. Bet you can only think of one: Johnny Hallyday, widely known as the French Elvis Presley...

Jean-Philippe Smet, to give him his real name, was born in Paris in 1943 and came to fame in the 1960s, singing rock and roll in his native language of French. Hence he was already a rock star when this picture was taken in 1967, as evidenced by the paparazzi outside the window of his Mustang. Hallyday still (occasionally) sings live, despite having ‘retired’ in 2009, and indeed his first ever live UK performances were in 2012. He lives in Switzerland, for tax reasons.

Many Ford Mustangs can be found for sale in the Classic Driver Market.

Sette Nero Manta

Think back to that awkward chat you might have had with the careers advisor about what you wanted to be when you grew up. Doubtful that the builder of this bike, Andrea Felice, ever needed to have such a conversation. His grandfather was a Baroque master carver and his father a furniture maker and teacher of cabinet making, no surprise then that Andrea would be a ‘maker’ too. After studying Industrial Design the call of genetics took over and Andrea moved to London to set up a now highly acclaimed furniture making business. A sucker for BMWs, he’s owned many over the years and a decade ago completed his first cafe racer build, a ’78 R80 called Biplano, and Sette Nero Motorcycles was born.

This latest build, Manta, is based on a 1980 R100T frame and engine. The swingarm has been braced and modified with a fully adjustable Showa mono-shock connected directly to the centre of the frame’s top tube with no linkage. The subframe is also bespoke and welded to the main frame.

The front end is from a BMW K75 with beefier 41mm stanchions and uprated twin disc set up.

Carbon headlight with integrated warning lights and a small, simple speedo are the obvious flashes of modernity, the engine and chassis will remind the rider that this isn’t a normal eighties Beemer with a few cafe racer tweaks.


A Heinrich endurance tank has had the knee recesses cut out and remade with fibreglass and sealed on the inside, allowing a clearer view of the suspension mods and ignition trickery. The battery is relocated in a custom aluminium box right down low, underneath the engine. Feet up on the billet rear sets and knees tucked up into the tank, the Manta is going to feel very lithe indeed.

The engine has been fully rebuilt and dynamically balanced by Jim Cray Engineering to create an almost zero miles unit, with new pistons and barrels by Siebenrock, ported heads and an electronic ignition conversion for the double spark plug set up. 40mm Dellortos on K&Ns replace the old Bings which sets a precedent for the exhaust to follow. A slender, in-house fabricated, stainless steel 2-into-1 feeds neatly into a stubby Supertrapp low-down on the right side. The gearbox also received the full rebuild treatment, no expense spared on this build then!

Front and rear rims have been relaced with stainless spokes and reduced by one inch in diameter to sharpen the handling.

If you want to take a closer look at this build, and meet Sette Nero’s Andrea, then get yourself a ticket for BSMC Event 3 where Manta will be one of the bikes on display.

Honda CRF450X Cafe Racer

The engine in the Honda CRF450X wasn’t designed to sit in a motorcycle that looked quite like this – originally designed for off-road work, the liquid-cooled, single-cylinder, four-stroke 449cc power unit was never meant for use on the asphalt. Despite being designed for trail and dirt use, off-road motorcycle engines often make fantastic powerplants for lightweight cafe racers – they’re built to be light, reliable, high-revving all highly desirable traits for modern followers of the 59 Club philosophy.
This bike is the second in the Sibling Rivalry series built by Woolie at Deus Ex Machina in California, he dubbed the bike “Dakdaak”, which is a fun word to say but has no apparent meaning in any known human language. As previously mentioned, it’s fitted with a a Honda CRF450X stage two motor that was specially prepped by Jim Wood at Southland racing with two-millimeter oversize stainless steel valves for reliability and longevity.
Interestingly, the forks are also from the original CRF450X, they’ve been re-valved, shortened, then adjusted for street performance by Ed Sorbo at Lindeman Engineering. The tank takes its design influence from the other bike in the Sibling Rivalry series – Boondaak, and it also has a similar custom-made chromoly frame and swing arm.
Personally, I love creative builds like this one, that repurpose motorcycles from entirely different genres into new bikes that are capable performers in an entirely unrelated class. If you’d like to enquire after this bike you can click here to visit Deus Ex Machina.











via SILODROME