Bike India Team

A custom building legend with the Midas Touch

The word ‘versatile,’ has been mercilessly bandied with many famous people of recent times but we really think it is appropiate in the case of Kenneth Robert Howard, or Von Dutch, as he is popularly known to his legions of fans the world over. Besides being a motorcycle mechanic of repute, he was also a pin striper, a knife maker, an artist, and a gunsmith.

His father, Wally Howard, was a Los Angeles sign painter; and, by the age of ten, the young Kenny Howard was able to paint and letter at a professional level. The Von Dutch nickname was intended to mean “stubborn as a Dutchman”. In the early 1950s he started of earning money by doing pin striping along with fellow pin striper Dean Jeffries. Von Dutch has been a major influence in the customizing vehicles from 1950 onwards till today. Some of his famous award winning work include the flying eyeball and the custom Kenford truck, along with numerous award winning custom motorcycles and custom cars. Many custom car and motorcycle enthusiasts, regard him as one of the fathers of custom culture in the world.

Von Dutch also designed and produced the Mare’s Leg, a cut-down Winchester rifle for the very famous television series Wanted: Dead or Alive. After a prolonged battle with alcohol addiction, he died in Spetember 1992, but not before he became a poster child of rebellion, biker attitude and creative free-thinking. Kenny Howard’s legacy still endures to this day – the Von Dutch company is now a licensed American multinational brand operating in more than a dozen countries and favored by celebrities like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears.

Over the past two decades, Shinya Kimura has risen to the top of the heap of custom bike builders with his stunning ‘zero style’ design of custom bikes

Up until now, custom bikes have mostly been the fiefdom of the West. Arlenn Ness, Jesse James, the OCC family – name any renowned custom builder off the top of your head and chances are, he will be American. But, slowly but steadily, the rest of the world is also waking up to the art of custom craft and creating a name for themselves in a field that requires enormous artistic talent, painstaking attention to detail as well as a thorough knowledge of metallurgy. Somewhere near the pinnacle of this list lies Shinya Kimura.

Shinya Kimura is a Japanese born custom bike builder and founder of Zero Engineering and Chabott Engineering who originated the “zero style” of custom bikes. A Zero-style bike is typically based around a rigid goose neck, a pre-1984 Harley Davidson engine, springer front end, spoke wheels and often includes parts of the bike remaining in bare metal.

In 2006 Kimura set up his own shop named Chabott Engineering to build both custom bikes as well as moving himself toward the world of art. He has also co-authored various books like “Art of the Chopper by Tom Zimberoff” and Zero Chopper Spirit – Samurai Bikes from the East and has also taken part in Biker Build-Off where he was put up against another great builder in the form of Joe Martin.

Shinya Kimura will be premiering two of his famed retro custom builds at this year’s Calendar Show. While the first of these two is a recently completed 1973 MV Augusta 750S named “Blue One”, details about the other remains undisclosed up till now. The former has already won the Quail’s Custom/Modified 1st Place Trophy and the Cycle World “Elegance in Action” Award in another event held previously. Over the past two decades, Shinya Kimura has built up an enviable clientele of motorcycle connoisseurs willing to pay top dollar for works of art that truly stand out from the usual breed. Like actor Brad Pitt, seen here in the picture with one of Kimura’s creations, the ‘Flash’ Café Racer.

Photograph courtesy: www.vanishingpointbikes.wordpress.com