His building style is distinct and it’s not known to include late-model power plants such as V-Rod or Twin Cam motors, Chica customs usually have a Shovelhead fit within their frame tubes. “I’ve had lots of experience with Panheads and Shovelhead motors because the original castings are nice and fat and there’s plenty of extra aluminum that can be shaved and shaped. The Knucklehead motor has a perfect look, and the original castings don’t have enough excess meat to work with,” Chica said. A likely candidate for either the P- or SH-Series motors for the anniversary, the choice was made for him. “Brett Smith called me last year and asked me if I’d like to build a bike for their 50th Anniversary, I agreed, of course. Then he asked if I’d like to use one of their P-Series motors. Again, I agreed and was happy to be included, but I would have taken an X-Wedge motor if they had offered because it’d be interesting to get inside one to see how it works,” Chica said.

Already familiar with the mounting configuration of the S&S motor that was on its way to his shop, Chica decided on a frame for his bike, keeping its name in mind. He felt a bike with large proportions would quickly identify it as a custom bike, with a 38-degree raked steering neck and an extra 5” added to the downtubes and another 6” added to the back bone. A stout Paughco springer front end was hung from the neck stretched 21” over stock to match the geometry of the frame. Chica bolted a pair of his handmade five-spoke wheels to either end of the machine and set the frame rails parallel to the ground using a 21-inch diameter wheel in the front and a 16 in the back. The rear hub was custom made to work with a mechanical drum brake and the front wheel was fit with a rotor and PM caliper.

As soon as it arrived at his shop, Chica installed the P-Series S&S motor into his frame and decided on the remainder of the driveline. He ordered and quickly received a Rivera Primo one-and-a-half-inch open belt drive and a BAKER Drivetrain 6-into-4 transmission. He made a set of custom exhaust pipes with a triangular-shaped expansion chamber to match the style of what he planned to do with the bike’s skin.

No stranger to sheet metal manipulation, Chica wanted to add another facet of significance to his anniversary bike by incorporating a prismatic and angular look to it paying homage to inspiring bikes from the early ‘90s. “Pat Kennedy and Denver’s Choppers separately built bikes with prismatic-styled sheet metal that I remember from just before I left Japan for the U.S. To me those bikes represented the ultimate freedom to build whatever you wanted to, a freedom I didn’t have in Japan,” Chica said. He fabricated a custom gas tank fit to the top of the backbone and slung beneath it is an oil tank, but the two containers appear as a single unit. Stainless-steel oil lines were hand-bent to run from the tank to the motor. The rear fender received the same angular treatment as the other sheetmetal and incorporates a Chevy-style taillight. He had Buck Wild lay down the gold metal flake base coat and Bob Iverson complemented it with graphics of faint rose silhouettes further accentuating the angles of the sheet metal with tinted panels.

Chica held true to the bike’s design throughout the build and his focus yielded him a custom that is worthy of its name, and a bike that is perfectly matched to its motor. “I like working with older-style motors. New, water-cooled and fuel-injected bikes need expensive equipment to maintain. The older versions only require hand tools and a little knowledge,” Chica said.