Unfortunately this dustbin-fairing version of Moto Guzzi’s California Eldorado won’t be coming to a showroom near you anytime soon, but a collaboration between Numbnut Motorcycles, Vanguard Clothing and Moto Guzzi is a gorgeous tribute to the firm’s now iconic V8-powered GP racer.
It’s the result of the trio putting their bike-loving heads together in search of a marketing stunt to coincide with the launch of Vanguard’s latest pair of fashion jeans called, aptly, V8.
Mechanically identical to its Moto Guzzi California donor bike, the look has been achieved by meticulous and often handmade customisation of both existing and added componentry.
According to the bike builders, Numbnut Motorcycles, aftermarket accessories for the big Italian cruiser are few and far between which forced the firm to become “pretty inventive,” especially when it came to repositioning the once forward-mounted controls to well behind the rider’s seat. The controls had to be moved 80cm from their original position and to the other side of their actuation point which meant the gearing took on race pattern all by itself.
YSS twin shocks replaced the enclosed versions on the original bike which lowered the stance to one more akin to a racer before the obligatory old-school crinkle-cut tyres were fitted.
The tank is a modified version of the original version and the seat is a hand-shaped affair designed to follow the line of the silhouette of the tank. The short, low and blacked-out exhaust is said to mimic that of the 1955 racer, though where the replica stops short just after it exits the fairing, the racer’s extended up below, and protruded past, the rider’s seat.
The dustbin fairing itself, which features a plastic-covered cutout for the headlight to shine through, is mounted to a subframe bolted to the front of the bike.
“A lot of mounting and unmounting was required to get the fairing to be perfectly straight on the bike,” Numbnut Motorcycles’ Roderick Seibert said.
By Kellie Buckley
