Honda XBR500 Cafe Racer by Unikat

It may sound a bit arrogant, but I think that I “discovered” the work of the Polish Unikat Motorworks. A few years ago, when I was searching the web for custom builds and builders, I stumbled upon the work of Grzegorz Korczak, which immediately impressed me. I was pretty amazed that other sites never published his work so I decided to do it. It was this Honda CB550 I’m talking about. His work soon got more attention and his bikes got featured all over the interwebs. So I was glad that I got these pictures in my inbox with the latest build: the “Great Gatsby”; the latest build based on a Honda XBR500.

The Honda XBR500 is a direct response to Yamaha’s SR500. Just as Yamaha’s machine, the XBR500 is powered by a single cylinder engine pushing out a pretty 44 horses. The engine was taken from the XR500 and has its valves arranged radially in the so-called “Radial Four-Valve Combustion Chamber” setup. Since the engine has two exhaust valves at a different location, the engine has two different exhausts, which some people may think of it as a twin cylinder.

The funny thing about the XBR500 is that back in 1985, Honda released it’s very own stock cafe racer the legendary Honda GB500TT. Which, in addition to the XBR, had a solo seat with hump, laced wheels, clip ons and racy striping. And today we have Unikat’s interpretation of the Honda XBR500 Cafe Racer. The pictures I got from Grzegorz are the first rough photo’s, I hope to receive more info about the bike soon…