Gangster Style Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe
Jake wanted a Vicla-style Harley-Davidson different from any others he had seen.
I AM a custom car and motorcycle builder in Brisbane, Queensland. I guess I’d like to start with the bike and the details about the build. I purchased my 2016 Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe brand new. I had the bike dropped off at my workshop (King Brown Design and Fabrication) with immediate plans to start chopping it up. I’ve always wanted to build a Vicla (a Spanish slang term for gangster bike) but I wanted to do something a different to the others I had seen around.
The main goal from the start was to have the bike on air-suspension and to lay the frame on the ground eliminating the need for a kick-stand. A custom lay-frame swingarm was fabricated and connected to a Shotgun rear air-suspension system. The front forks were heavily modified too and fitted with custom-made air-suspension components. This was all done to allow the bike to lay the frame on the ground on a 18/21-inch wheel combination.
Once I had the bike laying down, I had to design and build a custom rear fender as the stock fender could not be used; the bike was so low the wheel would hit it before the frame touched the ground. I started out with some cardboard templates to get the flow right. Next, I made a buck to shape the metal too. My mate and coach builder, Dean Fono, got the shape into the 1-mm cold-roll sheet in his Baileigh Power Hammer. The fender was made in two halves; many hours were spent to get the reverse curve right; and then it was welded together.
We recessed the seat into the rear fender and it mounts on from the underside of the fender for that clean look.
The front fender received a similar treatment — it was stretched and a slight reverse curve added to it.
With the handlebars I went with Carlini Designs, 16-inch Gangster Apes. I converted the bike to a hydraulic clutch and ran all the lines inside the bars for that super clean look.
The Freedom True Dual Sharktail exhaust really suits the look I was after.
The paint work was done by Nathan at Livin Loco Garage on the Gold Coast. I had followed Nathan’s work for a while and I loved everything he did; his style was just what I needed. I gave Nathan a rough idea on the colour I wanted but left the rest up to him. The end result is a multi-layer, House of Kolor, pagan gold candy over multiple bases, gold leaf, pinstriped, etc.
The bike took 18 months to complete. A lot of research and development had to be done, and to my knowledge, it’s the only genuine lay-frame Deluxe in the country.
Words by Jake Brown; photos by Lisa J Hayman Photography; modelling by Chloe Southern
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