Saturday May 8th, 2010 following the smashing success of the “Bullet”, Falcon Motorcycles custom builder Ian Barry is going to reveal its newest custom at the Carmel Quail Lodge. Named the “Kestrel” (after a species of falcon that hunts in the open plains) it is the second of “Falcon’s Series Of Ten”, 10 custom motorcycles designed around the engines of iconic pre- and post-War British motorcycles.” The work of an artisan is always a work of art, especially when you are Ian Barry and spend up to 2,000 hours redesigning old bikes from the ground up and performing all the fabrication in-house, including some tools necessary to work on them.
The heart of the Kestrel is the engine from a 1970 Triumph Bonneville, which Falcon cut in half and completely re-engineered. With the exception of a few critical pieces everything – including the frame, girder front forks, gas and oil tanks, exhausts, handlebars, levers, even the cylinders – was fabricated in-house from blocks, sheets and rods of steel, brass and aluminum. Although Ian Barry doesn’t want any pictures of the Kestrel published before its unveiling on Friday, at least I can show you a video interview shot by the Los Angeles Times where you can catch a few glimpses of this bespoke, one-of-a-kind motorcycle art. Falcon Motorcycles.
i would love to be wealthy enought to just build a couple of bikes a year…beautiful bike, the rear exhuast megaphone mount is totally smooth and so cool. would love to see it in person, one of those bikes that untill you see it up close and personal the pictures dont do it justice
Can’t wait to see the pics. Hurry up Cyril.
Incredible. And wait ’til you hear it turn over, it’ll make you weak in the knees! Falcon has outdone itself.
RE:
“…i would love to be wealthy enough to just build a couple of bikes a year…”
It’s not so much a matter of “wealth” as it is a matter of “priority.”
There’s “making a living” and then there’s “making art”……
Although the two are not mutually exclusive they are damned hard to do coincidentally.
-nicker-
nicker…my priority is feeding my family and keeping the shop open so extra income to do “art” is almost non-existant
I think building a custom on an “art” level takes about the same amount of time as building a restoration on that level, of a Vincent, lets say. Makes sense they could only make a couple bikes a year. Looking forward to the Black Shadow….