The Mustard was our Battle of the Kings entry for 2019. Based on a 2019 Sportster Forty-Eight, the Mustard was built using style cues from several different styles of custom motorcycles.
The most eye-catching feature of this bike is undoubtedly the iconic tail section which was custom fabricated using a fibreglass cafe-racer seat unit mounted to a solid steel under tray. The tail section was raised up to give a classic Cafe-racer line which runs from the tank backwards. This enabled the twin exhausts to be routed under the seat unit, which gave a sportier look to the bike and gave a symetrical rear view of the twin exhausts. Once the heat shields were added to the tail section, it was apparent that something was needed to aesthetically balance the width, so the swinging arm was beefed up with supports which subtly widened the appearance of the bottom half of the back end of the bike. This was then paired with mustache engine bars on the front of the bike to widen the profile and match the width added to the rear, giving the bike a “pair of shoulders” which contributes to an aggressive stance.
It was decided early on in the design of the build to use tyres with a wide sidewall profile, this was complimented with pressed alloy discs which were machined to fit into the wheels, then painted black with white text to give the illusion of even deeper sidewalls.
The suspension was lowered front and rear, and this shrunk down any voids that could be seen, along with the chunky tyres filling the empty space to give a solid aesthetic when looking at the bike from a side on view. The headlight was lowered to sit just above the front tyre, and then a headlight cowl was custom fabricated from a carbon fiber fender to provide a more visually pleasing flow to the front of the motorcycle.
Something we’ve always felt about our builds is that seeing them displayed on a side stand doesn’t do them justice, a motorcycle is designed to be ridden, and therefore the design is visualized upright and in motion. In order to allow the bike to be displayed properly without a paddock stand which would raise the rear too much and compromise the stance of the bike, the decision was made to add a center stand. This is a genuine Harley-Davidson part, but it’s very rare to see a bike with one fitted, particularly on a custom bike. A Free Spirits fiberglass belly pan was fitted to give an uninterrupted flow to the underside of the motorcycle, and this also adds a flash of colour to the lower portion of the bike.
