Two Honda scooters go head-to-head this week. One is a souped-up and stretched custom Honda Ruckus from Australia, the other is an electrified Honda Super Cub from Canada. We’ve also rounded up a cool Triumph Street Scrambler 900 from our friends at Tamarit, and a modern classic BMW R5 concept from Roughchild.
Honda Ruckus by Ellaspede Although we seldom feature them, there’s an entire subculture dedicated to custom Honda Ruckus scooters. Known as the Zoomer outside of North America, the Honda Ruckus is somehow both cute and burly, with a tubular frame that invites customization.
Australia’s Ellaspede doesn’t really specialize in custom scooters, but this is the second custom Honda Ruckus they’ve wowed us with this year. It’s a tale as old as time; the owner of this Ruckus saw what a good job Ellaspede was doing on his buddy’s Ruckus, and wanted in on the action. So he booked it in for a full cosmetic makeover with performance to match.
“My mates inspired me to go through with it,” says Ellaspede’s client. “I have a handful of mates with full custom Ruckuses, with everything from airbags, to complete ‘Bōsōzoku’ style, to JDM spec. So I decided to switch it up and go full ‘desert spec,’ something that hadn’t really been done before in our group.”
Ellaspede kept most of the Ruckus’ frame, plus its fuel tank and front fairing. But just about everything else was binned—including the stock engine. A bored-out 171 cc GY6 mill takes its place, good for a top speed of around 100 km/h [62 mph].
Billet engine mounts cradle the relatively monstrous engine, effectively stretching the Ruckus. There’s a new shock mount at the back too; with the lowered front forks, the whole scoot now sits closer to the ground. Blacked-out aftermarket wheels add a hit of JDM style, measuring 12×4” up front and 13×7” (you read right) out back.
The cockpit wears clip-on bars, CNC-machined controls, and Teflon-coated brake lines. Brembo calipers grab 220 mm discs at both ends of the bike. Adjustable brace bars stiffen the chassis, while a Brock’s Performance exhaust takes care of the soundtrack.
The Ruckus also sports a new wiring loom, LED lighting, a Koso gauge, and a refurbished front luggage rack. An extra LED light bar helps out on night rides, while a custom plate bracket keeps the fuzz at bay.
Lastly, Ellaspede slammed the seat and wrapped it in a digital desert camo pattern, using a heavy-duty Cordura fabric. It’s the perfect match for the rest of the Ruckus’ sandy paint job, which was inspired by classic Toyota 4x4s. [More]
Electric Honda Super Cub by Sally’s Speed-Shop This remarkably elegant moped started its life in 1981 as a humble Honda C70 Passport Deluxe—a variant of the immensely popular Honda Super Cub. But by the time Sally’s Speed-Shop was done with it, the only recognizable part was its underbone frame.
Sally’s Speed-Shop is the nom de plume of an enigmatic custom motorcycle builder based in British Columbia, Canada. He barely has a digital footprint, but he does have a knack for building ingenious machines. Last year, he built a lean café racer with an electric motor—now he’s struck again, by electrifying the Honda C70.
Once Sally started stripping the Super Cub down, he struggled to rein himself in. Pretty soon the bike had been torn down to just the main frame, in need of new suspension and new bodywork.
Sally attached a springer-style front-end from Kepspeed, designed specifically for the Cub. A set of drag bars sit up top, while freshly laced oversized wheels lower down (with twisted spokes, no less). To make sure there was enough clearance for the rear wheel, Sally also fabricated what he calls an “aluminum trestle-type anti-swingarm.”
The streamlined bodywork was created by first building a steel frame to support a handmade mold, then shaping the final shell out of an epoxy composite. Everything was finished in chic black paint, with a handful of contrasting aluminum parts, including a drilled front cover, faux louvers on the sides, and an auto-style trim line that wraps around the body. A slim aluminum seat pan is perched on a cantilevered mount, trimmed with black leather.
Under the hood, an 8,000 W electric hub motor propels the scoot forward. Everything needed to run it is stashed under the body’s shell, from the battery to the controller and requisite wiring.
Finished off with minimal accouterments, Sally’s electric Honda Super Cub exudes class—even if it is a little quirky. [Via]
Triumph Street Scrambler 900 by Tamarit Motorcycles We’ve lost track of how many custom Triumphs Tamarit has built already—but that’s only because we stopped counting at 150. The Spanish shop does everything, from high-end one-offs, to more restrained custom jobs that take Triumph’s already handsome modern classics and dial them up to eleven.
This liquid-cooled Triumph Street Scrambler Triumph 900 is a prime example of the latter. It’s visually clean and still recognizable as a Triumph Scrambler, but it’s also stacked with sneaky upgrades and tasteful mods. Tamarit built it for a client that wanted to tackle the odd bit of gravel, without losing its street manners.
Most of what you see here can be replicated fairly easily with Tamarit’s aftermarket parts, and a tiny bit of cutting and welding. The seat, rear loop, rear fender, and license plate bracket are all part of a kit that requires changes to the subframe to install. Tamarit fitted most of the kit as-is, adding some contrasting piping to the seat to help it complement the paint job.
The Street Scrambler 900 now wears Öhlins suspension at both ends; we applaud Tamarit’s choice of right-side-up front forks. Beringer brakes improve the bike’s stopping power, specced in gold to match the suspension parts. The OEM wheels are wrapped in Heidenau K60 Scout tires.
An adaptive LED headlight sits up front, with tiny LED turn signals from Motogadget at both ends. Tamarit also installed new yokes and handlebars, Puig levers, and bar-end mirrors and turn signals. The sump guard, chain guard, and front fender are all Tamarit parts, while the twin exhaust system comes from Zard in Italy (which is where this bike is headed).
Custom number boards flank the Triumph, with a black, white, and yellow livery adorning the bike. Custom Tamarit tank badges finish things off in style. Tasteful and chic, this Tamarit Triumph is the perfect custom blueprint for the versatile Street Scrambler 900. [More]
BMW R5 concept by Roughchild Motorcycles Operating as Roughchild Motorcycles out of Los Angeles, Robert Sabal builds some of the tidiest BMW restomods around. Now he’s upped the ante, with an upcoming limited series of custom BMWs that take inspiration from the iconic BMW R5. And he’s given us an early look at the initial design renders.
If you’re not au fait with BMW’s design heritage, the R5 is the bike that loosely inspired the BMW R18. But Robert’s design is far closer to the R5 in both aesthetics and size than the hefty R18 is. A hardtail-like frame layout forms the base of the design, with an exposed drive shaft and fishtail exhausts adding faithful nods to the past.
But this Roughchild concept is vintage in look only. Robert is speccing it with Öhlins upside-down forks and top-shelf disc brakes, and has even factored in a sprung saddle design for extra comfort on the road. The handmade handlebars will sport an internal throttle and hidden switchgear to keep the overall layout super-sano.
And then there’s the engine. Roughchild has partnered up with Ed Pink Racing—Singer Vehicle Design’s go-to shop for hopped-up Porsche engines. Ed Pink is building a set of fuel-injected boxer engines for the R5 concept, complete with Porsche 911 internals, special cylinder heads originally designed for the Porsche 946, Mahle pistons, and a host of other bespoke parts.
With an expected output and weight of 100 hp and 400 lbs (twice the power-to-weight ratio of the R18), Robert calls this the “ultimate hyper-classic motorcycle. Roughchild is only building 10 of these though, and four are already spoken for. [Roughchild Motorcycles]
