What began as a simple shape he had been sketching for years — three simple pencil strokes on a sheet of paper — has finally been given flesh and bones by moto desinger Max Hazan.
And the result is a Louvre-worthy masterpiece.
Just stare at this for a few minutes:
Whenever Hazan’s eponymous Hazan Motorworks blesses the game with a new work, we tend to fall all over ourselves for certain. But we weren’t expecting this. A departure from his previous custom bikes, the ‘49 BSA 500 has the majestic build of a ‘30s Delahaye. Hazan knew from studying the 500cc engine, simple and stately, that he wanted the bike to be narrow and stylish with a fully enclosed rear.
Typically of his dreamer persona, Hazan wanted to create something he had never seen before. For him, motorcycles are an artistic medium, wherein “the piece should reflect your willingness to build whatever you can imagine.”
That’s not to say that the rear half wasn’t a beast, even for a maker savant. To realize the vision, the back hub had to be constructed of seven pieces tooled from aluminum and chromoly with a 3” diameter sliding axle that allows for the rear wheel to drop out. What would take most a lifetime took Hazan 5-6 attempts to get right. “Like most builders, I usually work on parts you could fit in your home oven,” Hazan told Bike Exif. “So using 50×30″ sheets for each side was a new challenge — and a pain in the ass.”
Fundamental but doing nothing to compromise the bike’s godly aesthetics, the suspension, jackshaft and handlebars were all mindfully designed to complement the bike’s body and engine.
Hazan does truthfully let on that it “rides and sounds like an old tractor.”
But we think that juxtaposition makes the BSA all the more exquisite.
via Bike Exif
photos by Shaik Ridzwan
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