Honda cb550 Fade To Black


A lot of custom cafe racers have been built over the past few years and one that caught our eye is certainly this new custom-made motorcycle built around one vintage 1975 Honda model. The new Honda cb550 “Fade to Black” cafe racer might just be one of the fastest middleweight vintage bikes ever put together.

Made in Federal Moto workshop, this custom made cafe has a pretty interesting backstory. This cafe racer was actually built around the original Honda CB550 which belongs to Grant Harvey, a Canadian film and television director. For his 50th birthday, he got a great present from his wife. She arranged for this model, made back in 1975, to be remade and customized especially for Grant.

Bike captured from the side.

This cafe racer was built around the original Honda CB550.

This “Fade to Black” Honda cafe racer has a 572 cc engine that’s fitted with pistons that are able to boost the compression ratio from 9:1 to 10:1. Since it’s completely coated with high-temperature powder, the engine looks really fresh and good as new. This bike also has an electronic ignition and 8-cell antigravity battery. This vintage custom bike is equipped with a GPS speedo system by Cognito Moto. These guys also provided this motorcycle with a rear hoop that has LEDs acting as brake lights and turn signals depending on the situation. Besides that, “Fade to Black” has a stylish brown leather seat that goes perfectly well with leather bags that can be found on the sides below the seat. [via]

Seat photographed from the side.

It has a leather seat and leather bags on each side.

Steering wheel photographed from above.

The whole front part was replaced with the front end of a Yamaha R6.

All these new parts fit perfectly with the original CB550 body but the unstable steering turned out to be the main problem. People from Federal Moto workshop had to get creative and they replaced the whole front part with the front end they took from Yamaha R6. They adapted it to fit well with the original CB550 spoked wheel and the whole thing was done.

After that, they started to work on the details. In order to make this bike more stylish, guys from Federal Moto wrapped the “Tracker” bars and a “Whiskey” throttle with the same brown leather that was used on the seat. So, after the exciting makeover this “Fade to Black” cafe racer became a simple but elegant combination of the 1970’s Honda and a modern bike.

Bike photographed from the side.

This custom made bike has a 572 cc engine.

Check out this “Fade to Black” Honda cafe racer here.


Daily Newsletter

Subscribe to Jebiga for a dose of the best in gear, design, rides, tech and adventure.