This is not the first time Barnett’s Magazine Online has featured a custom based on a Yamaha’s venerable twin, but this has to be the baddest bad ass XS 650 hot rod we’ve run across. Devon Eckert, owner of Whiskey Tango Choppers in Thomasville, North Carolina, built a race-style bike like a lot of XS owners do, but it’s not the typical street tracker or café racer you expect. This bike looks like it’s meant to travel the earth a quarter-mile at a time without any thought to making that short run comfortable or stealthy. It looks like a flat–out drag bike that can’t find the strip. Just pull this thing up next to another bike at a stoplight and tell me the other rider would not be at least a little bit intimidated. I know I would.

 

   The finished product named Bad Reputation began with a 1981 XS 650 donor bike that coughed up its engine to be rebuilt with a light touch of go-fast goodies and a bunch of updated aftermarket parts to make it easy to kickstart and more reliable all around. Just some things like a Hughs Handbuilt upgraded alternator and flywheel kit to a PAMCO electronic ignition. The stock alternator has been an XS 650 Achilles Heel right from the factory and who the hell still wants to play with points and condensers, timing lights and dwell meters? Plug And play is what I say. The engine breathes through stock carbs stacked with individual foam filters and exhales through the stubby equivalent of an old rail’s Zoomie headers covered in header wrap. The clipped exhaust is so short it almost dumps out the engine’s burnt remnants even before the engine actually gets there.

 

   Devon mounted this mill in a stretched-out gooseneck-style rigid frame that appears to be covered or should I say “protected” by what’s either a hammered finish or a spray-in bedliner style of finish. Makes sense to me as this bastard of a build is not flashy in any traditional matter of style. But, going as fast as that torquey paint-shaker of a vertical twin can go while laying almost horizontally over the bike to reach the low clip-ons has its own good-looking merits. The forks are now radically raked out with an appearance that looks more straight-line competent than corner-carving friendly. Oh, by the way, that’s an air ride-style of a fork that I’d assume is more about How low can you go? than trying to make patchwork streets not seem so damn patchy. Besides, who cares about comfort when you’re holding on for dear life with the cacophony of intake and exhaust noise supplemented by paint-shaker vibration at WFO throttle?

 

  The choice of rolling stock did not consist of writing a huge check for the latest billet wheels, but using the stock mags off an XS 650 which look perfectly businesslike for this application. Devon took a sharp left when it came to using XS brakes which incorporate the latest high technology from 33-years ago. Famed Italian brake manufacturer Brembo provided the four-pot front caliper up front while the back is one of their twin pot setups hooked up to a Brembo master cylinder. Without getting too unnecessarily deep, there’s a good reason why so many riders, racers, manufacturers, and builders turn to Brembo as their one-stop stopping center, they work.

 

   There’s not a lot of metal shaping going on with only two distinct pieces of bodywork, but what there is, is done very well. The Mustang-style (my words) tank looks primo and ready for hooligan duty with a funky-cool, curved gas filler topped with a beautiful billet cap that I’d probably need instructions to open. I do like the fore-and-aft, raised seam going down the middle of the fuel tank for its unabashed duty as the fabricated metallic tank stripe instead of paint. Perfectly interesting as is and, a great choice on Devon’s part.

 

  The one concession to comfort is the double-edged sword of a seat which has an air ride suspension attempting to make the lovely hand-formed aluminum tail section/non-padded seat base tolerable for those who still have trouble plunking their butt on metal for any period of time without incurring pins and needles or spine damage. It definitely gives the bike a drag look, though, and I’m sure that’s what Devon intended. Apparently the judges at the Ultimate Builder Show felt likewise so the sleek tail section could definitely be considered the proper choice.

 

   If you’d like to get in touch with Devon or just find out more about Whiskey Tango Choppers, you better be a Facebook member as WTC doesn’t have a website, but it does have a Facebook page. Facebook freaks, you know the drill so get typing and see what’s up at Whiskey Tango land.