After recently featuring AdHoc’s 3rd Cafe Racer build it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t take a quick look back at his second. Based on a late model CB750 ‘Night Hawk’, Ad Hoc has managed to achieve the unachievable, he’s made it look good. Don’t get my wrong, I love the CB, it’s just that somewhere around the late 80’s early 90’s the Honda design department lost sight of the CB’s rich history in favour of “modern styling” which was quickly outdated.

To begin the Nighthawk’s makeover the bike was completely torn down with only the engine and frame remaining. Something I never liked about the evolution of the naked motorcycle was when they went from beautifully paired tank/seat combos to tail ends that were basically straight off a full fairing motorcycle in the manufacturers existing model range. This resulted in elongated rear ends that made the fuel tanks look stout and the whole bike look unbalanced. Thankfully AdHoc had no interest in retaining the Nighthawks original bodywork so it was swiftly scrapped. The rear of the frame was cut away and the swing arm, foot controls, wheels, forks, seat and headlight were all discarded to make way for a long list of custom parts.

To shorten the bikes stance a new tail end was fabricated and a GSXR 750 swingarm and inverted forks were mounted. The new bodywork came courtesy of fiberglass workshop Europlast which is a new design addition to their catalogue. The seat was which was originally of a Bultaco TSS was modified to fit the Europlast seat pan and the wheels are Ducati GT1000. I’m not usually a fan of coloured frames but the vibrant Royal Blue used on this build has been balanced perfectly with black and white. With plenty of Honda Nighthawks around perhaps they could be the next cheap donor we see commonly used for Cafe Racer builds?

AdHoc Cafe Racers | Images by Nacho Hernando