Miguel Sánchez
Photos: Petersen Automotive Museum
California is a land very given to doing crazy things with the motor. A sun that hits almost every day of the year, ideal for the most unexpected convertibles, a magnificent asphalt that sinuously connects dreamy beaches, the proximity of a desert full of roads towards infinity where to give gas to a good 'muscle car' ... In short, a place where any motor enthusiast would not find time to get bored.
And yes we say 'motor' and not 'four wheels' because today we are going to allow ourselves a license to speak to you ... Of motorcycles. It is not that we have had enough of the cars, at all, but we must admit that feeling the wind in the face with a mechanic working between the legs is not a bad way to enjoy the asphalt either.
Custom Revolution: Custom Bikes in the Petersen
So today we go to the sunny and biker California to see to what extent some people can become obsessed with motorcycles. An obsession that leads them to personalize them to the point of creating completely new creatures, unique pieces that have little to do with the series model. We are talking about the 'customization'.
A concept that, being as we are lovers of originality, fills us beforehand of reasonable doubts when relating it to the 'tuning' from the automotive world: a style where over-customization moves dangerously close to hyper-colored baroque. But, as with cars, a well-done customization can approximate or be, directly, art; this is undoubtedly what happens in the sample 'Custom Revolution', exhibited at the moment in the Petersen Automotive Museum of the Angels.
Given the controversy surrounding customizations, it is not usual for a top-of-the-line classic vehicle museum to host an exhibition focused on this discipline. We are talking about machines in which, in many cases, even the chassis has been altered; however, given the psychological depth of the metamorphosis, they have become an evolution at the height of its predecessor.
This is the link between motorsport, motorcycling and art, that is revived in handcrafted creations that would not make sense in the market and that, therefore, are the maximum creative expression of designers. And nowhere better to host this pioneering show than the Petersen Automotive Museum, a kind of Guggenheim of motorsport, as can be seen from its imposing building and its collection, one of the most fascinating in the United States.
In the section Temporary exhibitions, Custom Revolution shares space with an exhibition dedicated to Porsche and two others dedicated to Ferrari's 70th anniversary and the classics low or thrown to the ground, respectively. Before that, exhibitions were devoted to Porsche 901 o to the Voisin, among others.
This time I had to do something big with motorcycles, and for that reason it has gathered 25 machines of 25 workshops "custom”Distributed throughout the world and that will be available to the visitor until March 2019.
Exhibition Custom Revolution combines old and current elements to create unique pieces from Japan, Germany, Vietnam, the United States and Spain.
MOTORCYCLES YOU WILL NOT SEE IN ANY GARAGE
Within the selection, it has caught our attention -if only to imagine the driving position- the creation finished off with the BMW logo signed by the Turkish industrial designer Mehmet Doruk Erdem and brought to life from its digital design by the Utah customizer Mark atkinson. A true torpedo that incorporates the typical BMW grille and a turbo engine derived from that of a 75 K1991.
With a less futuristic but very personal aesthetic, we also have a motorcycle derived from a Harley Davidson from 1937. Something that, although obviously a true attack in the eyes of any restoration purist, has not stopped becoming a model with more or less restrained aesthetics that inserts a gas tank inside the gold-colored seat! It's about the Speedster by Ehinger Kraftrad.
Although for extreme modifications that of the example that has come from Vietnam, where Bandit9 has revised a Honda Super Sport 125 to transform it into a masterpiece.
Although good, the truth is that we would keep each and every one of the motorcycles of Custom Revolution. The explosive mix of art and mechanics is hard to resist, even if the originality of the classic has been altered.
Are you of the same opinion? Tell us in the comments.
