When it comes to vintage Harleys, we prefer a ?less is more? vibe. Bikes that are loaded with billet and bling, or sporting airbrushed illustrations on the tank, are just too much for us.
This elegant Shovelhead from Japan is the kind of custom V-twin we love. Stripped back to the mere essentials, it comes from Yusaku Sato of Hiroshima?a builder whose work we?ve featured before, in the days when his shop was known as Sato Marine.

Sato-san and his crew are renowned in Japan for their Shovelhead builds. But this ?82 bike has a more understated vibe than the tracker-influenced ?68 we featured four years ago.
The 1982 date on the engine was the starting point for this build, because that was the year Sato?s client was born. Otherwise, the brief was wide open. ?The production side was left to us,? says Sato.
The 80ci V-twin is virtually the only stock part on this machine: the rest is an eclectic selection of parts, married to fine Japanese craftsmanship. The intake system is one such example: hiding behind the custom-fabricated air filter is an S&S Super E carb to extract the best from the reconditioned (and beautifully refinished) motor.
The glorious exhaust system is a one-off from start to finish, with sinuous big-bore headers leading to a pair of unusual rounded-rectangle muffler exits. We?re banking on this one being pretty loud ?

Then it was on to the even harder work?making the frame. ?I wanted to get a straight line from the neck,? says Sato-san. The neck ...