There?s something strangely appealing about board tracker motorcycles. To modern eyes, cars from a hundred years ago usually look odd and ungainly?but board track bikes still look minimal and elegant.
Unfortunately, any machine built to race around the motordromes of the 1920s is virtually unrideable on the road today. But the Arizona company WYLD has come up with a more practical way to enjoy this classic style.

Founded by Nathan Shew five years ago, the Scottsdale workshop has built up a reputation for classy VW bus and Toyota FJ restorations. It has a booming business in BMW café racers too, with 19 orders on the slate right now. So these guys know their way around ancient hardware.
This ?Vintage Board Tracker,? however, is a modern ground-up creation, and a prototype for a production run. ?Our vision for this build was purely fun,? says Justin Casaubon, Wyld?s operations director. ?We wanted to do something completely different.?
?We have always thought that old school board trackers are cool. What a great era for motorcycle culture?those guys paved the way for what we have now.?
The core of the bike is an off-the-shelf, air-cooled replica Suzuki 250 cc engine. In future that may change: it?s there for proof of concept, as WYLD develop and refine the design. At the moment it is carbureted, but the company is also looking at a fuel-injected option.

The frame is handmade, and simplicity personified. The gas tank fits neatly between the upper frame tubes, and it?s...