Australian motorcyclist who does custom made motorcycles in his own style and passion wanted to build a unique, powerful café racer but he just doesn’t want to settle with any lower cc engine and to meet his desire Triumph Rocket III was his choice to go. Triumph Rocket III powered with 2294cc inline triple engine produces 146 bhp and a stock bike weight 350 kg. Rocket III was launched in 2003 competing with higher capacity road monsters like Honda Gold Wing, Harley Davidson, and Yamaha. He decided to do a customization for 2006 model Triumph Rocket III into a power packed rocket café racer.
Wenley says, “After having a look around, I found one with really low km’s on the clock, so finally this build could get started. Little did I know, the power of this bike is just outright ridiculous, while also being quite a heavy machine. The first step was to remove as many things as possible to lighten this beast up. I wanted to turn this into a Rocket café racer. The main obstacle was the tank, as it is so huge it just wouldn’t look right for a café build. I had a custom tank made to fit, full metal with the stock fuel pump fitted underneath. Before we could send the tank off to get worked we had to get a custom alloy intake fabricated, as the air filters on the rocket are so close to the tank. It ended up looking really rad with the K&N pods.”
Bringing up the seat to fit in as a café racer for Rocket was a critical part where Triumph Thruxton’s seat got swapped. The rear frame was fabricated as the tail part to be tiny as a café racer. Tyres, headlights mirrors and handle grips have been changed.
“We had Andrew from Beyond Trims to sort out some nice red stitching for the black seat we had. Once all the parts were back from being painted and the seat was completed, the fun could really begin. We ditched the massive stock front radiator for a custom made alloy race radiator which was then painted black to flow with the rest of the parts. A new exhaust was needed, so I drew up a concept on a piece of paper and handed it over to my mate Billy who welded up the new piece for me. This was then ceramic coated, initially black but this when then changed after I stood back and realized there was too much black now on the bike. We changed it to silver, which gives a good accent to the image of the bike and shows off the exhaust more. Because the rocket was so low at the rear, the stance didn’t look right. I spoke with the guys at IKON Australia who came up with a solution which was a custom made Rocket rear shock which was a one-off. Now that the bike was looking as aggressive as we intended, it was smash time.”
This is an impressive custom café racer and for-sure a head turner on the streets. With the raw power of 2294cc cruisers with lightweight café racer body gives a legendary experience on the go.
Source: Wenley Andrews Photos: Throttle Roll
