2SUS Cobra Craft Custom Motorcycle
It was unrideable. If they hadn’t stripped it down and re-built it, they never would have got it registered,” said Ken at Cobra Kraft.
JANELLE at 2SUS Custom Resprays:
2SUS Custom Resprays is predominately been involved in cars from street Commodores, RX3 to race cars but these days we also do bikes — if you’ve got it, we can paint it. We tend to do a lot of graphic paintwork, audio, insurance work, bumps, scratches, and a lot of showroom stuff. If you read Hot4s magazine, you’ll see a lot of our cars. We’ve won a lot of prizes for our work. We send the guys over to the States each year to look for new ideas and new ways to paint bikes and cars. We generally pull down our own cars and bikes, rebuild and repaint them until we’re happy with the product we get. The boys stay up late at night and scan the internet for graphics and ideas. We use a lot of tattoos and we hand-paint all that kind of thing; it’s not a stencil or decal.
The guy who originally built this project bike didn’t follow our brief; we took it back to him but he just couldn’t fix it. We just weren’t happy with the outcome. I’m anal like that — I’d rather not show it if it’s not 100 percent. Then we took it to Ken at Cobra Craft who did a lot of fabrication, some mechanical work, changed the frame and narrowed it a bit.
Everyone throws in their two cents worth on the bike, including our customers and everyone else who hangs out here. We have a large group of males, females and young people who come and hang out at the shop on the weekends; it’s a bit of a social and everyone takes an active interest.
It wasn’t my choice to have a purple seat. There is a purple car out front and the boys have an affiliation with purple, so we voted for it and I got out-voted. We work on a vote system here and whoever happens to be here gets to vote; the boss doesn’t always win. Doran Custom Interiors did this seat; he also does our audio.
Every build we do is different. We use a lot of different people for a lot of different things, just so we get the schmickest job — like there are some upholsters who are good at some things and others who are good at other things — so depending on what build we’re doing, and how much the customer wants to spend, would depend who we use.
If a customer has an idea on a paint job, I’ll sit down and talk to them. I might ask them what sort of person they are, where they live, what do you do for work, are you in a club, do you have any tattoos — tattoos are a personal thing and they come hand-in-hand with bikes — and then we do a list of things they like and a list of things they don’t like. The boys will mock up something for them, give some ideas on colour coating, airbrushing or themes before we touch the bike or vehicle.
If someone wants a whole build or rebuild done, we can manage the whole job too. Customers are able to see the bike at every stage here at the 2SUS Custom Resprays or at Ken’s Cobra Craft workshop. I’ll sit down and find out what they want, get a ball figure on what they would be looking at spending. Ken will liaise directly with the customer when it comes to the mechanical and fabrication side of things to make sure he is doing exactly what they want. Ken’s work will be billed out directly to the customer; we don’t charge a project management free; there are a lot of people who do that but we do most of our work for the love of it.
KEN at Cobra Craft:
The bike was unrideable when it came in; it was a shit-box. If we didn’t pull it down and redo it, we wouldn’t have got it on the road and registered.
We cut the fame — the backbone on the seat area — because it was so wide at the back you’d sit on it like John Wayne; it was just too wide and uncomfortable and it looked hopeless. So we’ve cut and narrowed it. It’s a Yankee frame. It has 38-degrees-rake, two-inches-up and four-inches on the backbone; the rear-end is 280.
We cut the front and rear guard, reshaped the oil tank because that was too wide.
All the wiring is internal because that was all hanging out when it came here. We’ve changed the bars; they’re custom ones we did ourselves. The rims are roll-outs; the Sampson pipes have been modified. The fuel tank is completely different and modified.
The 127 Ultima engine and six-speed, right-side-drive gearbox are still the same.
The other guy had the rear brake caliper hanging pretty much straight down, so we’ve remounted it so it runs parallel to the swingarm and it’s a lot neater.
The first time I rode it, I had two feet in the air. There is no comparison to a standard Harley — it’s a lot faster, a lot more brutal than a standard bike. If you accelerate hard it’s going to spin the wheels or lift the front. If you gas it and it’s not turning the tyres, it picks the front up.
Words by Janelle at 2SUS Custom Resprays & Ken at Cobra Craft; photos by Wall-to-Wall
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