Written by Marlon Slack
It?s easy for us in the west. Want to build an old airhead" Fire up Craigslist, go kick some tires and sooner or later you?ll have some Bavarian moto-goodness sitting in the shed. But in other parts of the world the dance is much harder. Like in Chennai, India, where Royal Enfield gurus KR Customs have crafted a sawn-off, BMW-inspired Continental GT.

KR?s Krishna Rajan is a huge BMW fan. ?During a trip to Switzerland last year I had the pleasure of riding a GS800. I knew wanted to make a custom bike with BMW at its heart.? And things started well, with Krishna stumbling across a great big ol? airhead tank during a work trip to Princeton. ?The tank was from the 80?s but looked in pretty good nick,? he says. ?It was always a dream to make a cafe or brat style bike with a airhead tank as a centrepiece?. Like a snub nose revolver
But there?s problems when trying to build a custom airhead in India. There aren?t any donor bikes kicking about. ?We had no hope of getting a used boxer engine so we settled on a Royal Enfield Continental GT as a base,? Krishna recalls, ?We picked up a used one for a couple of grand that had around 10k miles on it?.

But this wasn?t going to be an easy case of a tank swap and calling it a day. Krishna and the team wanted to delve a little deeper into what makes a classic BMW look… well, like a classic BMW. After sending the engine off to blasting the frame was stripped and plans for a mono-lever were laid out. ?Ther...