09/10/2018
Here’s our latest custom bike build, based on a 2016 KTM 690SMC-R, we were given the go ahead by the customer to do as we pleased as long as it fit the overall look he was going of, which was a vintage enduro bike style.
The bike was complicated to build as the KTM originally comes with a subframe fuel tank made out of a plastic composite material with a submerged fuel pump, and had a very modern look to it. We started by getting rid of that stock subframe fuel tank and made a custom subframe for the bike, that would also help support the rear of the new tank we were planning to use. We then tried 5 or 6 different tanks and ended up settling on a modern Ducati Scrambler tank as we needed a lot of clearance underneath for the twin spar KTM frame as well as a certain tank design that would allow us to re mount the original KTM submerged fuel pump in the new tank.
We then fabricated a battery box, built a custom seat pan and hand shaped the foam from scratch.
Custom Stanless exhaust was mated to the bike and hand made vintage style side panels /number plates were also built to work well with the new exhaust. A light weight lithium battery was hidden under the seats as well.
Old school Aluminium front and rear fenders were fitted, a one off custom vintage headlight/ mesh guard was fabricated and some mini turn signals and super bright LED brake light from Rizoma was chosen.
The bike was mocked up in bare metal and upon seeing the bike in bare metal the decision was made to ditch all the previous plans of paint for the bike and focus on a brushed clearcoated bare metal look for the bodywork, but incorporating a little touch of KTM orange trough some striping here and there to make sure everyone knows what it is. A bunch of simple black and grey powder coating was done to the chassis parts and the original wheels were given a custom touch as well with custom orange pinstripe.
The bike was finished off with Continental TKC 80’s and matching custom seat upholstery to give the bike that old school offroad look.
What a pleasure to have been able to build this one of a kind custom and finally got to work on something with as much bite as its bark, a proper hooligans bike!