CAFÉ RACER 76

YAMAHA Yard Built: KEDO's SR400 Stallion & Bronco

Enjoy the legend Yamaha SR400 as customized Cafe Racer and Street Tracker. Built by KEDO for YAMAHA Yard Built Project.

YAMAHA Yard Built: KEDO's SR400 Stallion & Bronco from ONNO PHOTOGRAPHY on Vimeo.

Snapshot, 1969: Planes, Soultrains and Automobiles

The year is 1969 and James Brown has made it, man! At the pinnacle of his career, the ‘hardest working man in showbiz’ is clearly enjoying the material perks of success…

With his legs casually crossed, one hand buried in the pocket of his midnight blue two-piece, the other resting on the radiator of a brand-new Lincoln Continental Mark III, James Brown has little patience for an impromptu photoshoot. Having just emerged from his personalised Learjet 24A with his band, this image of the ‘Godfather of Soul’ was captured by photographer Julian Wasser at Los Angeles airport for Life magazine. Do you reckon he feels like a sex machine?

Photo: Wasser/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images

CAFE RACER DREAMS XR600

This season’s new black seems to be the Street Tracker or Scrambler, or perhaps some Frankenstein love child of the two. No longer though is it acceptable to slap a set of knobblies on a street bike and adorn it with more adventurous connotations. Cafe Racer Dreams aren’t some new upstart, they’ve been banging the custom drum for a long time and have produced some wonderful bikes in the process. Need confirmation? Click here for some of what we have featured from Pedro and Efraon over the past couple of years.

Starting with a proper donor usually leads to a true multi-tasking result, in this case an XR600. Well, not quite proper, the Honda arrived in appalling condition and needed more work than the usual elaborate strip and rebuild that CRD apply to their builds. On this project the customer wanted something similar to a CRD XR600 from a couple of years back, the Apollo, obviously with some upgrades and a bit more punch.

Making subframes suit certain designs can be futile, so Pedro saved the compromise and chopped the old one off, preferring to fabricate from scratch. A skimpy rear fender hangs off the new structure in an attempt to keep crud away from the fancy bits. One of these being the Öhlins rear shock, very fancy.

Exhausts are a contentious issue. Some like flowing continuous bends that involve either expensive equipment and brain that can make a protractor work or arms like Hugh Jackman and bag of dry sand, others prefer the welded section approach. Personally I’m torn but in this case; if you can weld then let the world know. Escapes GR based in Galica on Spain’s far west coast put together this race style 2-into-1 stainless system with a two stroke-esque muffler.

The slim waistline comes courtesy of a handmade and upholstered seat flowing into the CG125 fuel tank. It does make me wonder what happens when a pizza delivery guy or courier needs a replacement fuel tank from a breakers yard, “Sorry sir, the dude with the beard and cool pick-up truck bought the last ones we had”.

Crackle finish high-temp black paint and raw edges to the cooling fins is the sort of attention to detail that keeps the order book full at CRD. And another shot of that exhaust; it looks like it grew there, out of a steel vine, should such a thing exist.

The Baja 1000 is off the cards so excessive suspension travel up front has been reduced to give a flatter, meaner stance and allow the new owner to get a little more aggressive on the brakes.

The paint job is subtle enough to let the rest of the workmanship do the taking whilst looking purposeful and smart.

The wheelset is by Excel with Continental TKC 80 tyres. Just a side note, if you’re a forum jockey with no real knowledge of what actually works in the real world; then please pipe down. Conti’s knobbly dual sport tyre can be pushed very hard on asphalt and the results enjoyed in abundance. I’ve done it, our mates have done it and loads of others have done it; they work, fact.

The CRD website will give you an idea of the breadth of the guy’s experience, and if you like what you see don’t be put off by their location if you’re from distant shores, working with a project and shipping globally is no problem. They also run a hugely successful Facebook page so keep up to date with their latest work.

the bike shed

Fancy flying a Spitfire?

At Heringsdorf Airport on the German-Polish island of Usedom, the ‘Hangar 10’ museum has an astonishing collection of classic warbirds. The best part is that you can even take a passenger flight. In a Spitfire...?

The Supermarine Spitfire Mk IX T9 in the aviation museum Hangar 10, which sits on the edge of the Baltic Sea, is an extremely rare piece of aeronautical history. Unlike the usual single-seater aircraft, this two-seater model was produced in the 1940s in only very small numbers. The plane even has dual controls, to enable instructors to teach their students the art of take-off, flight and landing, and also to take any necessary corrective action. However, the two pilots have no direct visual or audible contact with each other: the teacher would sit in a separate cockpit behind the pupil and was dependent on the radio link to his front man. A certain amount of trust in the abilities of the student pilot was also imperative – since the pilot in the rear cockpit is unable to see the runway in the approach for landing.

A turbulent history

At the heart of the British classic sits an imposing Rolls-Royce Merlin 76 engine, its 27-litre capacity and 12 cylinders giving a whopping great 1,650HP. With the help of a four-blade variable-pitch propeller, the Spitfire can make rapid progress through the skies and sudden, steep climbs. If the throttle is pushed fully forward, a speed of about 650km/h is possible and, with so much power, a competent and sensitive hand is needed for take-off and landing. The story of this actual Spitfire is enough to send a slight shiver down your spine: in December 1943, the machine was delivered to the Royal Air Force and suffered damaged shortly after. After being repaired, it completed more than 300 missions in Normandy, before taking up a more peaceful role after the end of the War.

A hangar full of surprises

Also unusual is the location of the Spitfire in the Hangar 10 museum, on the northern German island of Usedom, right on the border with Poland. Other former warbirds from the 1940s include an American P-51 Mustang, a Russian Yak 9 and even a Fieseler Storch from Germany. In the not-too-distant future, the museum is also planning to welcome the only remaining airworthy two-seater Messerschmitt 109. Hangar 10 is the result of the determination of local pilot, aircraft enthusiast and entrepreneur Volker Schulke to realise his family’s dream of a flying vintage car museum.

An airman's dream come true

But now for the best part: aviation enthusiasts can actually fly in these rare gems. Anyone who dreams of such an experience can come to the twice-a-year ‘Air Fighter Academy’ days at Hangar 10 where, for the sum of 2,700 euros, you can take a half-hour flight in the Spitfire Mk IX T9 or her American counterpart the Mustang P-51D. The pilots of these rare classics are the renowned Spitfire expert Charlie Brown and Mustang professional Rob Davies, both from England. The atmosphere in Hangar 10 is very friendly, and each passenger is able to say what he or she hopes to get from the upcoming flight. No more than five guest flights per machine per day are arranged and, since the Heringsdorf Airport has an approximately 1.2-kilometre grass runway, conditions are ideal for these warbirds, which are better suited to grass slopes than paved runways. If the guest has a pilot’s licence (and the pilot agrees), the passenger is even allowed to take control of the stick, as both planes are equipped with dual controls. Otherwise, it is enough simply to enjoy the breathtaking climb rate and 1940s experience aboard the two former fighters.

Photos: Richard Paver / Hangar 10 / Jürgen Schelling