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Scott in Bali wearing “The Brat” T-Shirt.
I’m not jealous…(hand over mouth…..bullshit)
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In December 2011, I was contacted by Paolo from RIDERS Magazine in Italy after he saw The Brat on BikeEXIF. He was interested in doing a story on the bike.
“nessun problema” I said, and answered a few of Paulo’s questions. I then waited for it to hit the magazine. Bingo, check it out, page 17 of the February issue.
un problema, it’s in Italian. Mmmmm….who do I know who speaks Italian?
Luke Inazuma of Inazuma Cafe Racer fame that’s who! - (Luke is the man behind the #1 Italian Motorcycle blog in the universe and is worth following even if you can’t read a word of it. There is always a good quantity of quality pics on his blog.)
NOTE: This is Luke’s translation of the article in RIDERS magazine. I haven’t edited it or tried to fix the transation issues.
Main article
One day they will have a properly furnished café in workshop style, vintage T-shirts, surfboards hanged at the walls, and gearless bicycles, as expensive as a motorcycles. But, at the moment they are only two hearts and a workshop in Perth, Australia, and a meaningful name: Garage Project Motorycles. The bikes built by Rex Havoc and Brad Petrevic speak a raw language and talk about minimal, and they respect their roots: the Japanese influence of the Brat Style atelier and the one of the smart colleagues of Deus Motorcycles are declared. (The influence is) declared to the extent that they name “The Brat” (la monella) this Honda CB350, which is the business card of the garage, and it seems just landed from Osaka.
Talking about names, Havoc in English means chaos, ruin, destruction (Really? I didn’t know! Ndt). Sloppy, at least. The two guys changed any single piece of the CB, without saving even the pressed steel frame, which has been substituted with a single cradle frame in steel tubes, (which is) nicely quick and, basically, hardtail, given that the quite streets of Perth do not require more than 9 cm of shock excursion.
But the real fun is on the details. The Rizoma rear mirror is bolted directly on the wheel hub. The very short intake air ducts are connected to the standard carburettors via two flanges with stellar fins identical to those of the exhaust. You better call the latter arquebuses as the muffles only are one meter long and the gun-ends are enriched by a beautiful brass bush.
Rex Havoc stormed his creativity also on the top parts: see the drag bar with bicycle handles and reversed levers, or the Nippodenso gauge with the speed limits signals.
The nice bit of this low rider is that it’s strange but not unreachable. You need a minimal budget, to know the right craftsmen, and to have time to waste in your garage. Havoc fished its CB350 on e-bay for the equivalent of 1,200 euro, but the work is quantified 10,000. A big deal, if you consider the Italian prices.
Side column
Enjoy the little things (il piacere sta nelle piccole cose) is what Rex Havoc made to engrave on the Morad aluminium wheels. Even it doesn’t seem so, the tank is original. The pinstriping is a tribute to Rex’s favourite Japanese artist, Nanami Cowdroy. Also the lightening work performed on the front brake is an intelligent, creative and aesthetically dazzling way to find solutions where they are: under your eyes.
A big thank you to Paulo Somani of Riders Magazine for the article and Luke from Inazuma Cafe Racer for the translation.
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Come down to the Perth Motorcycle & Scooter Show and see The Brat on the Perth Street Bikes Stand.
Open today, Saturday & Sunday.
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Thursday was a big day for us. BikeEXIF decided to feature our third project “The Brat”. The bike was built in response to the ugly comments that some bikes receive on not only bikeEXIF but a lot of blogs.
We expected all hell to break loose in the comments section and kudos go to Chris Hunter the owner of the blog for running with a “high risk” bike. When I emailed him and said “Wow, I didn’t expect that response”, Chris replied “Me neither — I expected death threats!”
We had some very subtle messages on the bike that everyone missed.
Kudos must also go to the commenters yesterday who it must be said, took the bike in good humour. Hopefully it made a few people think about how they could make more constructive and respectful comments in the future.
If you’d like to see the full story on bikeEXIF and maybe make a comment then make the jump here
