First, I have to give a thumbs up to the unknown builder for building something this over the top, yet it’s not over the top. The vintage-looking frame was built from a pile of tubing and not some old crock although it does resemble a ‘50s bicycle frame I have out in my garage. There are curves just for the sake of curves and that’s okay as whoever built it surely wanted to have some fun. Same goes for the fork with its Indian-style leaf spring setup. There’s just stuff going on everywhere you look and my eyeballs constantly follow all the curvaceous tubing like they were stuck on a rollercoaster. Even though there’s a vintage vibe like something you might not be surprised was made in England back in the ‘20s, it’s someone’s idea of what the ‘20s should have looked like.

 

   The leaf spring theme continues with the seat where three leaves stick out from the pivot on the frame and suspend the rider in mid-air taking some of the brunt of bumps away from the rider. Just in front of that leafy seat is a tank built to give homage to mid-twenties flat tank era of extremely handsome Nortons. Whoever built this bike has gotta be a damn knowledgeable guy as you can see he kept the flavor of one of Norton’s prettiest bikes of that era, the 1925 Model 18. As you can see by that Model 18 photo, it could easily have been one of his inspirations behind his build. Vertical twins like the Norton engine sitting in this frame didn’t some until much later (late ‘40s) and the original 500cc twin’s styling was way more modern looking even though it was definitely vintage by today’s standards.

 

    

   I doubt that the engine is one of the original Dominator 500cc twins, though, or a later version which was stretched to 600cc, but probably one of the later 750cc models. But wait, there’s more, that little 500 became an 850 before Norton shut its doors. That surely was a lot of stretching for the Bert Hopwood-designed Brit twin just the opposite of Subway’s spokesperson Jared who started big and ended small. The version here sports a single carb unlike the famous twin carb Commandos and since high performance wasn’t a prerequisite, a single carb fits the build better. Short header-wrapped pipes surely make for a pleasing sound as Nortons tended to do ─ just ask Rodent.

 

  There’s quite a bit of Steampunk funk on this bike from the mix of brass, raw aluminum, and painted steel. The brass touches abound especially in the handlebar setup which has to be one of the more intricate assemblage of clubman bars ever. Even the clamps have clamps. Nice touch on the brass levers, grips, and risers along with the gas cap which looks straight off Nemo’s sub. Particular points go to whatever the hell that headlight came from along with the gear-driven speedo whose cable goes from one end of the bike to the other before being driven by that big cog of a sprocket on the rear wheel.

 

   Like I said at the beginning of the article, I wish we could have contacted the mystery owner to find out more about the build and his inspiration. Sometimes stuff happens and at least we get to show you something different, no, make that totally different and it’s a rider too being ridden in to the Smoke Out. Even though the owner probably will never see this article, I doubt he’d care as he’s either off riding his one-of-a-kind or busy building something else straight out of left field.