Wednesday, August 08, 2012

The Chief and his Superbike PT. 4

Took me a little while on this one. Been busy....
I think we've got the formula figured out. I think the paint is next. I want to throw out there the idea that race bikes are race bikes and the color of the paint has nothing to do with how fast the bike goes or whether or not it will win a race. Mostly it has to do with sponsor exposure. If you win, everyone goes out and buys a pack of Gauloises or whatever the sponsor happens to be selling. Of course, some look better than others and because we are talking street bike it's important here. Personally, I don't think the gold wheels are going to get in the way of any color scheme. I could be wrong but as we've seen it looks good on Silver. This could look great with a few splashes of color like the stripes on this CB.
Are you hearing Burl Ives in your head just like I am right now?

Red and gold is good, but very Eye-tye. Nothing wrong with that but it is a Japanese motorcycle. Hey, if it was good enough for Mike... 
From the Hailwood Wiki

Found this here. http://www.classicsportbikesforsale.com/
This bike was for sale on ebay and actually had a bit of a connection to the Old Man. 
Bodywork is not original but the paint is in the style of a factory job.

I think most of the factory colors of the KZ900 were pretty nice. Brown as above, there was a nice emerald as well. 

Pic from here. http://www.ultimatemotorcycling.com/1976_kawasaki_kz900

Euro spec model with dual front brakes. I like the green. What color would I paint it if it was mine? That's really a tough one for me. Black looks good. Add a splash of lime and Bob's your Mother's brother.
Dual brakes, 4-1 black pipe, CALFAB swingarm, cutdown stock seat, remote res shocks, velocity stacks. Yeah, can't go wrong here. Black is a little on the nose, however. 
I would be remiss if I didn't include some photos of the bike of my hero, Eddie Lawson. This again is a little later but like the Wayne Gardener bike...whoa, baby. It's a replica but who's counting. 

Pic by Rick Ostericher.

That guy could turn a corner, eh? Check out the tach.

This picture has me thinking. The leathers have a blue stripe to accent the green. I hadn't mentioned blue because I just didn't think it would look good. But now, maybe some kind of blue and green scheme with the  gold wheels. Something like what is going on here...

This pic and the one above of Ed are from here. TONS of reference pictures of bikes like this on that site.

So imagine a two-tone job like the one above but paint the darker green in a midnight blue instead. Ignore that shit on the front fender. We can definitely ignore the turbo as well. If you want to go that fast just go to the dealer and pick up a new ZX-14. I think done right, blue and green could work. It's a slippery slope though.

 Klinsman

Cooley
Another Wes Cooley with a different number. Stock mufflers. 

You can see quite a bit of the special frame details here. Look how short the shocks are. Different tank and ducktail...RD400? GPz?





1 comment:

Gymi said...

Man, Wes Cooley looks like he's twelve in that shot. As for the tins that is a KZ1000mkII like the one here; http://vintagedirtbikes.blogspot.com/2010/12/time-to-daydream-again.html My all time favorite KZ.