The coronavirus pandemic continues to shrink into our rear-view mirrors, however its ripples are nonetheless being felt in some methods. We proceed to listen to experiences of how the worldwide lockdown both put workshops out of enterprise, or gave each established and aspiring customized builders countless time to convey their tasks to fruition. The story of this Honda CB400 café racer features a little little bit of each eventualities.
It’s the work of Alex Model and his newly-formed workshop, Casita Customs. Alex runs Casita, which loosely interprets to ‘small home,’ out of a backyard shed in Jersey Metropolis, New Jersey, together with his brothers-in-law, Victormanuel and Cesar Salazar. However he’s really a British ex-pat who had been residing in Shanghai proper up till the pandemic hit.
Alex was a part of Shanghai Customs—the workshop liable for the electrical eTRACKER that will finally evolve into the Change eSCRAMBLER. Then the pandemic occurred. Alex managed to hop a airplane out of Shanghai simply because the nation locked down, and shortly discovered himself in New Jersey, “bikeless and bereft,” as he places it.
“We have been all caught indoors with household; eight in the home with 4 canines,” he tells us. “So the three of us decamped to the shed out again within the backyard, for our personal sanity, and doubtless for everybody else’s too.”
Casita’s first construct was a Honda C90 electrical conversion, utilizing leftover components from Alex’s Shanghai Customs days. However Alex finally discovered himself commuting into Manhattan—and the plucky little C90 wasn’t reducing it.
“We discovered a beaten-up 78 Honda CB400T barn discover which wouldn’t begin, was rusting badly, and had a pinhole-riddled tank,” he says. “It had had the entire back-end angle-ground off. It was a multitude.”
Alex, Victormanuel, and Cesar set to work, tearing down the engine and carbs and placing them again along with recent sundries. Whereas the bike was stripped, the body was proven some much-needed love. Alex cleaned it up, de-tabbed it, and welded in a brand new rear loop—however he didn’t mess with the kinked line of the CB400’s body.
“The bent bar subframe was a big problem, structurally and visually,” he explains, “however I wished to maintain that distinctive aspect, reasonably than reducing it off and welding in a typical ‘café racer’ triangular subframe. This meant that the remainder of the bike needed to work to search out these good traces. It was rewarding to see the problem repay.”
“Honda components are so properly designed and bulletproof, we tried to maintain as a lot of the bike inventory as doable, together with the carbs, controls, fender, rims, and brakes. I used to be decided to maintain that stunning authentic tank too, regardless of it being nearly a sieve with all of the pinholes. It took countless tins of Redkote, epoxy, and Bondo, nevertheless it’s again in enterprise.”
To complete off the rear finish, Alex known as on a pal in China who does lovely hand-rolled aluminum work. He equipped a neat rear cowl, which was fitted together with an LED taillight strip. Subsequent, a brand new seat pan was formed out of fiberglass, and topped with a number of layers of high- and medium-density foam, to assist Alex deal with New Jersey’s potholes.
The seat then went off to Nice Buffalo, an upholsterer in Union, NJ, to create the good-looking diamond-stitched cowl. That and the aluminum tailpiece have been the one bits that have been outsourced. Every little thing else on this construct was dealt with by Alex, Victormanuel, and Cesar—together with the paint job, which was performed in a makeshift tent pitched exterior Casita’s shed.
“I’ve all the time cherished Patrick Godet’s Nineteen Fifties Egli Vincents, with these lovely traces and black and gold John Participant-esque liveries,” says Alex. “In order that was entrance of thoughts as I set about designing this bike. Inexplicably, I can’t assist however ‘Italianify’ folks’s names once I give them nicknames, so ‘Vincenzo’ was born.”
A handful of recent items have been chosen to complete off the Honda, together with an LED headlight, new clocks, Motogadget grips, and Highsider mirrors. Alex additionally rewired the bike and put in a small Shorai Lithium-ion battery. And the rusted exhausts have been changed by a shiny new two-into-one system.
We’re glad Alex discovered one thing to show his hand to—however we’re much more stoked to listen to that Casita Customs already has a number of extra tasks within the works. Within the meantime, for those who’d wish to see Vincenzo within the wild, you’ll discover him roaming the streets of Jersey Metropolis or crossing the bridge into Manhattan.
