Yamaha XS650 Café Racer Signature Series

With this café racer, Purpose Built Moto took its in-house Signature Series in a vintage direction for the first time. The base is a 1973 Yamaha XS650 that had already seen the race track and came with some nice period parts. The client wanted a bike you want to look at and have to ride: on the road and at the occasional track day. The workshop stripped the frame completely, shortened the rear, smoothed the factory welds and cut away material around the footpegs and swingarm pivot. Instead of a classic rear hoop, the frame is reinforced on the inside and the slim tail sits on hidden mounts. Frame and engine cases are nickel-plated, the remaining engine parts polished to a high shine. Up front, a 230 mm Robinson drum brake with four leading shoes, converted to hydraulic actuation, does the stopping; its slave cylinders are hidden behind the fork legs. The clutch is hydraulic too, with a slave cylinder from a Ducati GT1000. The engine got new internals, a reworked cylinder head, a HOOS 700 race kit, Shell #1 camshafts and twin Mikuni VM34s. On the dyno it made 52 hp at the rear wheel. The 2-into-1-into-2 stainless steel exhaust with an X-pipe under the engine and twin torpedo silencers was built in-house. Paint is by Livin' Loco: greys and silvers with a custom-mixed teal as a take on the classic speed-block design.