After road testing the Nightster I dug back into the launch material of the bike and found this great film I missed when it was released. It bucks the trend of recent marketing films, that are getting shorter and shorter to suit social media. This one is a full Coronation Street/EastEnders long, at 27 minutes.
It begins with the design team discussing the bike, then shows a band making music that runs through the film, before getting into the meat of the content, five different custom builders from the USA, UK, Japan and Germany, making their own version of the Nightster. I was familiar with all of them, except Thunderbike of Germany. We are long-time friends with Brandon of The Speed Merchant, one of the original Californian hooligan racers and creator of performance-orientated Harley and Triumph bolt-ons. We also know Charlie Stockwell, the London-based custom builder made his name at Warr's, Europe's oldest Harley dealer. Charlie also built and raced hooligans with the DTRA, including a hot Sportster ridden by Jake Young. And I love Hidemo's Harleys, though his show winners are normally much older Harleys, though he has customised dozens of Sportsters.
Below are a few stills of four of the bikes featured in the film.
Hideya Tagoshi of Hide Motorcycle (Photos: Steve Gaudin)
Charlie Stockwell of Stockwell Designs (Photos: Jan Jack Klos)
Brandon Holstein of The Speed Merchant (photos: Mark Kawakami)
Kim Bergerforth of Thunderbike (photos: Michael Rauscher)