Paul Quirini of Johnston, Rhode Island, is out to change that with his custom Road King. It does seem a bit strange to need a touring bike when the state you live in is only 37 miles wide and 48 miles long, but Paul’s got his reasons. “Three years ago in St. Thomas, my wife and I passed a T-shirt shop where one caught my eye,” said Paul. “It had a cartoon drawing of a Road King that was unbelievable. I bought it and said, ‘Someday I’m going to build a bike that looks just like that.’ “

The first step involved playing with his mouse until eBay coughed up a clean 2002 FLHRCI for the right price. “I ripped it apart down to the frame two days after I bought it,” said Paul. Not a fan of fuel injection, Paul decided to change over to a carb. “I feel you can do so much more with a carb setup, looks and performance-wise,” said Paul. Trouble is that the tanks wouldn’t work with a carb petcock and had to be changed (With Pingel’s new FI to carb petcock adapter and fuel valve, this is no longer necessary). “I had a set of split tanks and it got me to thinking,” said Paul. “They gave me a big seam in the middle, so I’m wondering how to fabricate some kind of shifter to come up through it. I took a piece of aluminum stock and figured out how to make a shifter and ended up with a shifter in the middle of my tank. I get a lot of compliments on it.” That’s not all he did, “I stretched the ends and now they look like they’re fifteen gallons,” said Paul.

Paul’s not sure what year the Indian front fender is, but this conspicuous styling element had the center strip removed and filled for a smooth look. The stretched headlight nacelle is another eBay item that looks like it came off an Art Deco-style locomotive. The bags have Arlen Ness extensions, which Paul modified by filling in the area where the exhaust is normally routed. The McKay’s Cycle Creations lids arch up mimicking the tank’s lines. A Ness fender narrows the fender to bag gap to less than a half-inch and sports what appears to be just a contoured plate holder, but those four “reflector bolts” are actually LEDs which provide brake and tail lights. Paint was a no-brainer for Paul as everything he owns is white and Precision Grafix in neighboring Pawtucket obliged him with the pearl white with ghost flames paintjob.

A RevPro 16” solid wheel with a 140 Avon sits aft while up front an 18” Custom Chrome Inferno shod with an Avon 130 provided a noticeable handling difference. “I wanted to show the wheel off,” said Paul. “So I machined the mounts off for the second disc and run H-D brakes front and rear.” Legend Air Suspension supports the lowered rear while the fork is stock height.

Paul made a set of sweeping bars with everything routed internally. He cut the seat pan in half and Charles Street Auto & Boat Company reupholstered it. Paul’s a big guy so he got rid of the floorboards and made mounts to locate the Hard Body foot controls 4” forward. Having to use his throttle hand to shift was one of the reasons the engine is basically stock. Yaffe Phantom pipes, a high-flow air cleaner, and diamond cut heads add some pizzazz though.

So, back to that T-shirt, did it come to life? “The only thing that looks similar is the front end. I changed my mind on the rest as I went along,” said Paul.