Vintage Steele's Custom 1975 BMW R60/6 Is Art

From Vermont-based wrenchers, Vintage Steele, this 1975 BMW R60/6 is a custom build commissioned by local mate and glassblower, Josh Bernbaum.

The ride had to be functional, as Bernbaum lives off of dirt roads, and certainly it had to be a thing of beauty and craftsmanship.

A Scrambler-style ‘75 BMW R60 hits the sweet spot: in their heyday they were known to be reliable, lightweight, high-performance rides. And while their production run was on the smaller side, many are still on the road today — a testament to the performance engineering.

BMW R60 (5 images)

For the project, Vintage Steele swapped the original horror-inducing front and rear drum brakes with modern 2011 Suzuki GSXR 600 inverted forks with dual front Brembo brakes and added in a GPS driven speedometer and tachometer. On the handmade side, they custom-crafted the luggage rack, seat and knee pads, the front and rear fender, the exhaust pipe and the foot pegs.

But the real star of the show is this museum-quality tank.

“I sought out the help of Christopher Myott, a buddy and wonderful fine-art painter in Jaffery, New Hampshire who happens to be friends with the crew of V.S. also,” said Bernbaum. “Chris Myott does a lot of motorcycle-themed artwork, and I like his color choices, so I asked him to sit down one morning when we sketched out the tank and color scheme of the bike on an iPad program he had and then we sent it to Pat who is V.S. painter. After some griping and head-scratching about technical stuff, Pat did a great job translating Chris and my design to the physical tank.”

The cherry on top is Bernbaum’s hand-blown glass BMW emblem accent. Everyone already knows it’s a Beamer, so why not make it something special? “I think we all really feel [the emblem] personalizes and customizes the bike to a degree even greater than what we already had achieved with the paint scheme, leather, and other design choices.”

Point well taken, but we can’t resist mentioning the uncanny resemblance to a certain boorish nuclear safety inspector with a penchant for cheap beer and pink donuts. Just try and unsee it.