Sportster Cafe Racer in Norton Featherbed Frame

The Sporton Cafe Racer

BIKEEXIF has a new post up about a very well-crafted Sportster cafe racer from Kaula Lampur. It's a 1969 ironhead motor in a Norton Featherbed Wideline frame. Check it out. (Photo Credit: BIKEEXIF)

KTM X-Bow to Get New Five-Cylinder Engine

KTM X-Bow

The X-Bow is a cool track car from Austrian motorcycle manufacturer, KTM. They've announced that in a few years it will be equipped with the five-cylinder 2.5l engine from the Audi TT-RS.

Hat tip to the TopSpeed blog, see their story here.

Lamborghini Egoista Concept Car Debuted at 50th Birthday Bash

Lamborghini Egoista Concept Car

Lamborghini's angular Egoista single-seat concept car, with a cockpit inspired by the Apache helicopter gunship. Way over the top.

Hat tip to Road & Track. Check out their slideshow.

Ohmori Masatoshi, Stylish Japanese Flattrack Star

Some really stylish moves here by Japanese dirttrack and Supermotard star, Ohmori Masatoshi...


 

Roland Sands Design YouTube Channel

Roland Sands Design

Roland Sands, professional roadracer turned custom bike designer/builder and motorcycle  accessories manufacturer, has a Roland Sands Design YouTube channel that features his company's products and his custom bikes.

This video features a couple of cafe racers.

Charlie Hood Returns in T. Jefferson Parker's "The Famous and the Dead"

We are big fans of T. Jefferson Parker's series of Charlie Hood novels here at Cool Stuff We Like. Charlie Hood is a Gulf War II vet and an LA Country Sheriff on loan to the ATF in Southern California, working to interdict the gun trade along the border with Mexico, an "Iron River" of weapons flowing south through the border states into the hands of cartel gunmen. As an honorable man in a dirty business, he tangles with an interesting cast of good guys and bad guys on both sides of the border and both sides of the law:

Suzanne Jones, a descendant of legendary 19th century California desperado Joaquin Murrietta, is an elementary school teacher by day. At night, she dons a rhinestone-studded Zorro mask and becomes Allison Murrietta, a sexy derringer-packing outlaw who specializes in robbing unsympathetic victims, and donating a big portion of her gains to various charities, and becomes a SoCal celebrity in the process.

Bradley Jones, Suzanne's son, is a reserve deputy sheriff who uses his law enforcement credentials as cover for his real job running drugs, guns, and bales of cash for a Mexican drug cartel. Like his mother, he idolizes his notorious ancestor; his life's ambition is to carry on the outlaw legend of the bandit known as El Famoso.

Then there's the mysterious Mike Finnegan, an enigmatic figure who knows things he shouldn't possibly know, who emerges now and then from the shadows to be a catalyst for all manner of chaos and mayhem, then disappears back into the shadows without leaving any fingerprints behind... He may or may not be a centuries-old devil, a tempter, in human guise. Years before he befriended Suzanne Jones, and now he's taken what seems to be an avuncular interest in Bradley Jones and his burgeoning criminal career. He's also got a troubling interest in Charlie Hood, who senses the evil beneath Mike's cheery banter and eccentric manners.

The sixth book in the Charlie Hood series, The Famous and the Dead, is out now. We are reading it now and highly recommend it... but if you haven't read any of the series, definitely start with the first and read through the fifth before you pick this one up, or you'll miss the narrative thread that ties all of these fascinating characters and their activities together.

Update: I typed "Flinn" instead of "Finnegan".... doh. Corrected that.

Hot Rods & Harleys Magazine, New Kustom Kulture Motor Mag

Hot Rods & Harleys Cover, Issue 2

I put up a post yesterday to draw your attention to the very cool kustom art and pinstriping of Hot Rod Jen... Found her SmugMug.com gallery while googling for pinstripe panel art. I was so impressed that I just googled again today to find anything else by her and came across a mention of her at the website of this new print mag, Hot Rods & Harleys. She is a contributor there.

This little pic doesn't do the cover justice... it's hard to tell here, but a larger, better pic of the original panel is up at their Facebook page.

Hot Rods & Harleys has just begun publication, the awesome panel art here is the cover of issue 2. From their "About Us" page I get the impression that a focus on  the work of custom painters and pinstripers is the thing that will set them apart from all the other hot rod and Harley mags on the market.

You can subscribe at the website, or find Hot Rods & Harleys at Barnes & Noble.

P.S. I did not mean to imply that the cover art was done by Hot Rod Jen... I will try to find out who is and update here later. Meanwhile, here's a link to a better picture of the panel.

"Hot Rod Jen's" Pinstriping & Art on SmugMug

Pinstriped Panel Art by Hot Rod Jen

I was googling around for pinstriped panel art the other day and stumbled across the very cool Kustom Kulture artwork of Jennifer "Hot Rod Jen" Skidmore on SmugMug. She has a huge volume of her work there, from pinstriped cars, motorcycles, and panels, to original drawings, paintings, and photography. Check it out.