One guy who always illustrates that point with each and every build has been Lucas Joyner of The Factory Metal Works in Concord, North Carolina. Somehow I feel he designs each bike by not looking at what he has to work with, but has a design in his head he clearly sees and just happens to use some of the donor parts to get there. What he doesn’t have or needs, he fabricates exactly they way he sees them with not the slightest bit of compromise to his vision. I don’t think the word “compromise” is part of his vocabulary. Don’t believe me? Take another look at the beautiful blue bike and find anywhere a compromise had to be made.
The build began around a pre-unit construction 1952 Triumph 650 engine and transmission that definitely allows a builder a tidy power train package to build around with it great butch lines and lovely aluminum English castings. Especially the unusually large primary cover which dominates the left side while the more traditional-style Triumph timing cover on the right still looks right gorgeous 54 years later. Throw on all those extravagantly finned aftermarket covers like the tappet inspection covers that supposedly helped it to run cooler as well as look cooler and you’ve got a looker in the making.
All-black cylinder barrels contrast nicely to all the polished aluminum and chrome just like we’ve always been promised a good look in black and chrome ─ the equivalent splendid taste of chocolate and peanut butter, but in metal. Splayed out in space on either side of the engine are dual Amal carbs (mounted on finned alloy manifolds) that remind me more of R. Crumb’s Keep on Truckin’ guy strutting about than serious fuel mixers. They’re taking up a bit of your personal space, but that’s okay because they’re part/action and part/drama at the same time. The short, but sweet headers end in a simple turnout, but not before a section of dimpling resembling a chambered exhaust has taken place just to add a bit of spice. The engine and transmission package are spotless with nary a bit of oil to be found anywhere other than inside the engine. How terribly un-British, but terribly appreciated, nonetheless.
I’m probably wrong on this assumption as I’m no hardcore Britophile, but the frame doesn’t look like something out of old Blighty. Instead, I’m guessing this is a TFMW re-pop pre-unit front half with a bolt-on TFMW hardtail as it just looks too clean to be British. The welding is superb compared to stock Triumph welding that always looked like a metal fight in progress. The minimal lines are as straight as can be whether it’s the front downtube, the steering neck to rear axle top tube, or even the rear axle to engine cradle. There’s just like four lines if you exclude the seat tube which I am and that’s about as absolutely as trim and simple as you can get. This is a perfect example of Frame Design 101.
No, I don’t have any idea what’s going on inside those strangely pretty, completely enclosed stock fork-legs that shine so brightly, you aren’t even sure they’re there. They mimic the style of a stock ’52 Triumph Thunderbird front end, but with a style all their own. The only way to have a cleaner front end would be to make the legs out of a single (extremely highly polished) tube on each side, but then all you’d have is a tube and no suspension. A small chrome Bates-style headlight sits snug between the legs while a handlebar from a late model Triumph T140 couldn’t fit in nicer.
That wee bit of a front brake is a drum off another Triumph model, but not a big boy. This chromed-out hill holder was originally fitted to a 200cc Triumph Cub of long ago and I’d venture it was still marginal on that little bike, but it’s sure better than nothing and it looks totally drum-brake cool. A high-shouldered 21-inch aluminum rim sporting a classic Avon Speedmaster MKII tire looks the biz without dating itself while outback a 19-inch aluminum rim wearing a vintage block tread 5.00 tire. All very vintage and trendy at the moment, but absolutely correct for this build ─ anytime. By the way, the rim is laced to the “original sprotor” a ‘60s Triumph drum/hub with a chain sprocket bolted on allowing you to see an unobstructed rear wheel from one side just like Russell Mitchell’s infamous sprotor did for later customs.
There’s not a high acreage of bodywork, but what you see is of the highest style and quality. Whether the tank started out as a Wassell-type replica or flat sheet metal, it doesn’t matter as it’s a one-off as it sits. The concave platform on top showcases the TFMW vented bayonet-style cap while the raised ridges on the sides define their space and accentuate the lines of the frame. A simple rounded flip-up fender with some rivets that add a bit of interest is radically cut for chain clearance is supported by a one-piece almost-sissy-bar fender strut. Nice and clean just like I like it. The TFMW chromed-out oil tank tries to hide in its reflectiveness of the space around it, but the small swath of diamond plaiting on the lower half is a dead giveaway that something else is going on here. Just enough to make you wonder if it’s a reflection or you really see what you think you saw.
Lucas chose a lovely light ice blue finish complimented by a touch of careful white pinstriping to highlight all the shiny bits. Incorporating an asymmetrically-stitched pleated bright white seat along with Pangea-Speed Ronald white grips and a white kicker peg keeps everything light-looking and adds to the airiness of the basic design. It just doesn’t get more elemental than this custom Triumph Lucas has conceived and built. There’s a cool motor, two wheels, and just enough to make it all work without the tiniest bit of clutter anywhere and I mean anywhere you look.
Another TFMW creation strikes all the right buttons and that’s no surprise. Lucas used the minimal button pushers needed and made each and every one a beauty to behold. That’s my kind of bike and Lucas Joyner is my kind of builder.
For more info on The Factory Metal Works, visit www.thefactorymetalworks.com/ or check ‘em out on Facebook.