One more in the garage. Brad Pitt loves Samurai choppers and Rad Cafe Racers. So, logically he is a very good client of custom builder Shinya Kimura. The only part you will probably recognize is the Ducati engine (1974). All the rest is pure old japanese crafsmaship where the name of the game is mastering mechanical complications. The oil cooler sits next to the headlight giving the bike an asymmetric look. (I remind you that Asymmetry, or Hacho, is one of the distinctive factors found in Japanese art). Will Brad Pitt gets unnoticed riding this Cafe Racer in the streets of Los Angeles? Of course not. It’s not the purpose. Just for the love of mechanical art.
Shinya Kimura Custom Bike For Brad Pitt
Published by October 21st, 2009 in Builders, Customs and Editorial.22 Responses to “Shinya Kimura Custom Bike For Brad Pitt”
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Shinya is a wonderful and humble person as well as master builder whose work is totally unique and is perhaps not as acknowledged as much as deserved. He is a credit to the art and the industry. Congratulations to him.
This is pathetic.While it’s not much of a picture this looks like a stock 70’s Super Sport that the moths got at!
Pretty hard to ‘improve’ or ‘customize’ Ducati’s. My opinion is they are much better (beautiful and functional) left stock.
A dual disc up front would be a performance enhancement, but something tells me someone has more money than brains…
does it come with a passenger pad for Angelina to accessorise the rear?
i must get a better look at that gas tank as it looks superb. I think using Italian V Twins is the way to go – as in your italo / irish post the other day – different and a bit of fun.
What’s wrong with a 70’s Vintage Norton Dunstall. Looks better and probably Rides Better and Get as many or LOOKS as you want or Need, even for Brad eh’ Frito Bandito! I know Jesse James Lives!
You can bet Brad paid big bucks for this as well. Hey Brad, I have an old Honda 50 around here somewhere …. some hammerin’, a little paint and a couple of tires it would look good as new ….and the best part is I would let it go to you for the low, low price of $80K …. what do you think? It would look better than what is shown here …….
Over & Out,
Jeff
Very cool pipes- would love to see the left side….
Damn, gallons of Haterade being drunk by this bunch of crybabies.
The bike looks beautiful and Kimura is easily one of the most talented and original builders of the last couple decades. At least Pitt knows real quality and style when he sees it. He could be like most of the douchebag celebrities out there riding around on Big Dogs or some such easter egg bikes.
Plus, Inglorious Basterds fucking ruled!
I agree. Sounds like some jealousy going on. Either because they wish they could buy the bikes Pitt does or they wish someone would pay them to build something.
In any event, I have also heard people complain about Pitt & how he isn’t a real biker & whatever. Fact is he rides all the bikes he owns. he doesn’t just have them to show & try to impress friends.
Didn’t know how much money you had or didn’t have made you a biker……
I like the Indian Larry Legacy bike Pitt got better, though.
Bigal
What’s wrong with a 70’s Vintage Norton Dunstall.
or a nice Laverda 1000
Jeff when guys like this are over chicked and under dicked, money is the great equalizer lol
Very good Bike,for people wo realy like motorcycles
Nice bike but I think with all the talk about Italian engines someone needs to mention Roger Allmond’s superb Ducati T-Bob. Personally I think the guy raised the bar with that bike. I’ll try to find some photos.
You are all missing the point, along with Brad Pitt. Buy American.
Good job the roads in the States are mostly straight….. you’d have a hell of a job taking bends on your Hog with those blinkers on!
Ya just gott-a love that 4LS brake …………. 🙂
-nicker-
Hope this isn’t the one he was just rear ended on :O
Is this the bike that moron dumped yesterday in traffic
Hey Nicklus, You wouldn’t know a good looking bike if your life depended on it. Which probably explains why you have to make up stories about your sales.
FYI – Shinya Kimura’s bikes (Shinya was the founder of Zero Engineering, now living and building bikes in America at ChabottEngineering.com) have been featured in every year of the Iron & Lace Calendar since Shinya won Best of Show at our 2004 LA Calendar Show Weekend. Brad Pitt purchased that first Show winner after having seen it on the FastDates.com Calendar Website and on the cover of our Iron & Lace Calendar. Brad has been buying many of Shinya’s bikes ever since.
We have been very honored to have Shinya appearing in person at the LA Calendar Show with his latest bikes and having featured in the Calendar every year since.
At the 2009 LA Calendar Show this past July, Shinya premiered 2 brand new retro twin cylinder sportbikes including this Ducati bevel drive 750cc he had just completed on commission for actor Brad Pitt. It will be featured in the next 2011 Iron & Lace Calendar. Check out the story and pictures on our FastDates.com website at: http://www.FastDates.com/BikeShow2009/BIKESHOW2009.01.HTM
Each year our FastDates.com Iron & Lace Calendar features the winning bikes of both the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Weekend, and the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building from Sturgis. Our models are some of the world’s most beautiful from current Playboy Playmates and Adult Film Stars, to Celebrity Models and TV/Movie actresses including Pamela Anderson, Jamie Pressly (My Name is Ed” and Joanna Krupa (Dancing with the Stars). You can’t get any classier than that! – Thanks to our Calendar fans and many of the world’s top builders like Shinya who support the LA Calendar Show and provide their bikes to us to shoot for the Calendar! – Jim Gianatsis, photographer and creative director, FastDates.com Calendars & Website
Nice to here from you Jim.
You have to appreciate the art of these motorcycles.
Which I dont believe Tom Zimberoff would approve. Its not clownish enough.
How ever I don’t really think Brad Pitt is concerned with who approves or doesn’t.
If more people were able to think out side the Box, our industry would be in a stronger position today.
We have managed to bring everything creative down the lowest common denominator.
I have had the opportunity to work on an original Shinya Motorcycle Its very solidly built and yes it is a bunch of old Classic HD parts, with some very sweet touches the base bike was a 46 Knuckle to be exact. Modified to execute a design purpose & function.
Its no different than any of the top builders in the industry today.
Accept Shinya Bikes warrant exposure because they are Different.
Not just a Black PPG custom paint job,custom wheels and pipes on a twin cam for the cover of another magazine. Oh I forgot we can’t shoot black it doesn’t photograph well.
This is a motorcycle that f Arlen Ness built, there would be no objections.
And I seem to remember a Ness bike with a cart racing motor in it. Most people didn’t get that either.
Try and look past your limitations of taste, to builders like Roger Goldammer of Canada or Fred Kruger of Belgium for exposure & inspiration.
I think we build bikes first for function to stimulate the body and then as Art and to stimulate the mind.
Some appreciate, and most don’t.
i think that the ike is a rolong pice of art.if i had the tools,and material:i would certinaly try my hand at some custome work like that.good job on the bike. iwould like to see more custome work like that on the road insted of seeing what people call “custom” tha are just a bunch of bolt on,and paint. That is not custom,that is a wast of money,and bad tast.
Ya know it’s really frustrating….for every talented person out there hand building rolling art that pushes boundaries there are several hundred (or thousand?) sticker and bolt-on asshats that can’t stand the fact that they’ll never be anything more than a talentless hack bound for nothing better than an Suzuki Gladius with apehaners.
These icons of the status quo get sand in their pussies about how it:
A) doesn’t look like theirs, so it’s not right
B) isn’t factory stock, so it’s not right
C) costs more money than they have, so it’s not right
D) some stupid combination of the above.
Then there’s the inadequate fuck whose equipment is smaller than average so you KNOW he’s gonna chime in with some dumbass comment of that nature. loser.
If you don’t like it, fuck off. Go piss in your own living room and leave the rest of us (and the bandwidth) alone so we can enjoy something unique.
No….just fuck off.
nick’s a lot nicer than I am…..