He found the answer in Yamaha's
XSR900, which quickly became a be-
spoke Haxch XZR900.
"The frame on the XSR got me think-
ing," Bell says. "It is super narrow, just
below the seat where it comes together.
It dictates the proportions of the whole
bike. The proportions are a bit like a
250GP bike."
Yamaha has seen incredible world
-
wide success with their XSR900 GP, a
machine created by the Tuning Fork
brand as a tribute to its racing success
-
es in the '80s and '90s (well, everywhere
except North America, as, inexplicably,
we don't get the XSR900 GP here).
The GP is part of the Faster Sons
Yard Built custom initiative that has
been running for well over a decade
(check it out here), one that's seen an
incredible array of designs that include
a Vance & Hines Eddie Lawson replica,
Randy Mamola Lucky Strike Yamaha
and a Christian Sarron Gauloises Ya
-
maha replica, but those were largely
aesthetic pieces.
Bell went not just one but several
steps further, using a base XSR900 (not
the GP model), creating his own body-
work out of sheet aluminum and having
to learn new processes to achieve a
result most would not have the time or
patience to attain.
"All the panels are handmade," Bell
says. "I had to learn how to do all the
metal shaping on an English Wheel as
well, so that's why it took a lot longer."
For those unfamiliar, the English
Wheel can trace its history back to 19th-
century England, where it was developed
as an alternative to manual hammering
for shaping metal, particularly in appli
-
cations like coachbuilding and aircraft
construction.
"Trying to use the English Wheel to
turn a flat piece of aluminum into a
given shape and angle took lots of trial
and error," explains Bell. "A lot of the
time you do a whole day and actually
you haven't made any progress at all! It
was a huge obsession—it's all I thought
about for the best part of the year."
The obvious question is why, in an
age of fiberglass and carbon fiber, has
Bell decided to forge Thunderbolt's
shape out of aluminum?
"Honestly, I just wanted to learn,"
Bell says. "Traditional metal shaping
The 2008 Suzuki
GSX-R1000-
based Slabshot
was one of Marc's
first big hits as
a custom-bike
builder. It's easy
to see where
Thunderbolt's
1990s style
came from.
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FEATURE I HAXCH MOTO YAMAHA XZR900
