BIMOTA GT1 Project
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 1:03 pm
Hello friends,
this is my first post on this forum. I am 55 years old and I live in Vienna, Austria. My passion is to restore, collect and ride classic or exclusive motorbikes, mainly twostrokes. Amongst several YAMAHA RD500s and 350s I also have a 1976 SUZUKI GT750 in original restored condition.
Back in the 80´s I already had a Bimota seatunit on that same bike:
I got a spare GT750 engine several years ago, tuned close to TR750 specs and I have planned to build a Cafe Racer from that for long.
Then, in my summer vacation, I read a book about BIMOTA and sa pictures of the HB1 which at the time was the most sexiest motorcycle in the world for me.
My plan was born to build a HB1 replica with a GT750 engine.
I already had bought a frontend, wheels and brake disks of a Z1000J (with 18" front wheel) and 3 classic AP Lockheed calipers years ago.
By pure coincidence I found a guy who was able to offer me a tank and seatunit very similar to the HB1 - it was not an exact mold (since only 10 of them were ever produced, no owner would ever give away a tank or seat for a mold!) but close enough.
I started with thinking how I could get the stock frame modified to replicate the typical HB1 layout with the main frame spars following the contour of the tank, and the very wide swingarm pivot area. I had some ideas, and contacted a framebuilder to check whether he could do the modifications.
He looked at it, and finally convinced me to build a completely new frame rather than modifying the stock one.
Off my parts went to The Netherlands: stock frame, fork, wheel, swingarm, dummy engine case with cylinder, shocks, handlebars, radiator...
As a reminder, thats a BIMOTA HB1:
Now the frame build started:
only 1 week later:
this is my first post on this forum. I am 55 years old and I live in Vienna, Austria. My passion is to restore, collect and ride classic or exclusive motorbikes, mainly twostrokes. Amongst several YAMAHA RD500s and 350s I also have a 1976 SUZUKI GT750 in original restored condition.
Back in the 80´s I already had a Bimota seatunit on that same bike:
I got a spare GT750 engine several years ago, tuned close to TR750 specs and I have planned to build a Cafe Racer from that for long.
Then, in my summer vacation, I read a book about BIMOTA and sa pictures of the HB1 which at the time was the most sexiest motorcycle in the world for me.
My plan was born to build a HB1 replica with a GT750 engine.
I already had bought a frontend, wheels and brake disks of a Z1000J (with 18" front wheel) and 3 classic AP Lockheed calipers years ago.
By pure coincidence I found a guy who was able to offer me a tank and seatunit very similar to the HB1 - it was not an exact mold (since only 10 of them were ever produced, no owner would ever give away a tank or seat for a mold!) but close enough.
I started with thinking how I could get the stock frame modified to replicate the typical HB1 layout with the main frame spars following the contour of the tank, and the very wide swingarm pivot area. I had some ideas, and contacted a framebuilder to check whether he could do the modifications.
He looked at it, and finally convinced me to build a completely new frame rather than modifying the stock one.
Off my parts went to The Netherlands: stock frame, fork, wheel, swingarm, dummy engine case with cylinder, shocks, handlebars, radiator...
As a reminder, thats a BIMOTA HB1:
Now the frame build started:
only 1 week later: