From my interpretation after dealing with him over the years means he either got some wicked cool choppers, bobbers, café racers, street trackers, etc. or the only thing at the shows were baggers. More often than not it’s one bagger after another. That’s not necessarily bad except as Jack often says. “It’s hard to tell the difference other than paint. It’s all about the paint.” Unfortunately he’s right in most cases although he shot one bagger from Azzkikr that we’ll be featuring soon that defies a lot of the rules including Jack’s keen unlicensed observation.

 

   Maybe what makes it so tough is that there are so many stinking damn talented builders and customers with pockets deep enough to do whatever is needed to build a show bagger to award winning standards. Take this black beauty of a radical custom Harley-Davidson Road Glide belonging to a person only known as Fernand and I’m not even sure that is correct. It could be Fernando or Fernandez or anything else that might sound like Fernand, but I’ll stick with what I was told and hope for the best.

 

   What Fernand did to a stock Motor Company FLTR is nothing less than amazing. He basically replaced everything that was there with new or at the very least, heavily reworked stock pieces that no longer had any stock left. Wheels, tires, brakes, bags, fenders, fuel tank, chin spoiler, seat, bars, foot controls, floorboards, exhaust mods, intake mods, audio upgrades, grips, mirrors and a million other doo-dads too numerous to mention. Suffice to say, Fernand put an extra long clip in his money gun and fired until it was empty, reloaded, and fired again. There were probably more clips of money exhausted before this build was completed.

 

   So what did Fernand have after the money smoke had cleared? An extremely nice custom bagger that actually looks useable as a motorcycle as the reasonable front wheel size and the basically stock Twin Cam give credence to. But, it wasn’t that much different from what other radically custom Road Glides had evolved into ─ sleek, crafty, expensive looking custom baggers. There was nothing immediately notably unique about this bike even after all the money I’ll never have to put in my own was spent on it.

 

  This is where old Jack Cofano comes back into the picture with his “It’s all about the paint” again. Fernand and his painter collaborated (I assume) on a mural-style scheme that flows with the lines on the base black paint Road Glide. Oh, the re-sprayed black is blacker than black with a swimming pool feel of paint depth, but it’s the gold otherworldly underworld theme that grabs your attention and pulls you in. There’s a story going on as you walk all the way around the bike and it’s a story of its own. Skeletized demons of some sort terrorize beautiful exotic wonder women while the Grim Reaper strolls through a sea of skulls. Actually, there are a lot of skulls, enough to have one of those “Guess how many skulls and win a prize” contests. But, this is all Fernands’ thing and probably what this bike was built to showcase.

 

  So, maybe this is what the custom bagger thing has come down to. “It’s hard to tell the difference other than paint. It’s all about the paint.” Score one for the Italian guy.