Based in Caxias do Sul, a town in Brazil’s hilly Serra Gaúcha region, Caffeine Custom is fast becoming a regular on these pages. They celebrated their tenth anniversary last year, and wanted to celebrate in style with a special custom build. The stars aligned when a customer approached them to create a slick Honda CB500F café racer for short rides and events.
“The client wanted a Honda Four that maintained some original aspects, such as the mechanical aspects and the tank,” says shop boss Bruno Costa. “But they also wanted a more modern, aggressive design.”
The Honda Four they chose was a 1974 Honda CB500F—a veritable pillar of the café racer world. The non-running bike arrived at the Caffeine Custom workshop in such a sorry state that the shop had their work cut out for them. The first task was to remove all the non-original parts and extract the engine from the frame so the extensive rebuild could begin.
With the engine out, the subframe was shortened and the rest of the frame was denuded of any superfluous bracketry. Once the frame was treated with a fresh black powder coat, the front end from a modern Honda CBR500R was fitted, and then lowered for a more aggressive stance.
A Honda NC700 donated its cast wheels to the project, which were painted a lustrous dark gold (as is proper when using alloy wheels on a classic café racer). The new wheels allowed the fitment of wider Metzeler rubber. There’s a 120/90R17 up front and a suitably chunky 160/70R17 out back.
Since the rear wheel was so much wider than the original, it took painstaking effort to both widen and lengthen the original swingarm, redesign the rear hub, offset the sprockets, and modify the shock mounts. If that wasn’t enough work already, they then adapted the NC700’s brakes to bring the bike into the 21st century. With a new set of adjustable rear shocks, the frame was a roller.
Caffeine Custom then turned to the bodywork. As the client had requested an aggressive neo-classic style, the team fabricated a new front fender, headlight shroud, tail unit, and side covers. The OEM fuel tank was painted warm satin grey and adorned with custom aluminum-engraved badges.
The tank flows effortlessly into the tail unit, which features a black leather seat and custom taillights that people have likened to those on a Ford Mustang (although Bruno tells us that was not his intent).
The front nacelle encapsulates an LED headlight, and is molded around a small speedometer from Drag Specialties that’s set into the upper fork clamp. Low-slung clip-on bars are kitted with minimal buttons, Motogadget bar-end turn signals, and Rizoma grips, rounding out the simple cockpit.
The side covers are purely aesthetic—created to fill the void under the seat with a light and sporty design. They tie the custom bodywork together in a cohesive manner we would usually expect from a major manufacturer.
The 1974 Honda CB500F engine was fully rebuilt using as many original parts as possible. Bruno describes finding original carburetor parts as particularly challenging—something that most old bike nerds have experienced firsthand. The engine was rebuilt to its original spec, with the only upgrade being a Dyna electronic ignition, and a fresh wiring loom with a Motogadget brain.
The engine and carbs were painted with a high-temp ceramic paint, with choice details buffed back for a bit of contrast. A set of stainless steel four-into-one Delkevic headers was matched to a custom muffler to create a soundtrack akin to a swarm of angry android bees.
When the bike was delivered to the client, Caffeine Customs had poured over 800 hours of labor into the build, and it shows. They nailed the brief, creating a café racer that’s worthy of its nickname; ‘The Bold Four.’
Caffeine Custom | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Paulo Pretz
