Anyone who’s been doing a job long enough has probably made a few rookie mistakes. For Tiago Gonçalves and Luis Gonçalves at Unik Edition, it was buying this 1978 Honda CB750 in the Portuguese shop’s early days, with their first bit of profit.
?It was bought without first being seen and evaluated,? Tiago admits, ?which turned out to be a bad decision. Between legalizing it, repairing the engine and improving it, a lot of time passed. We saw the bike go from one corner of the workshop to another, and donating parts to other Hondas.”

?We would occasionally show the bike to potential customers, but no one believed enough in this bike. Deep down we believed that this bike was meant to have a happy ending… we just didn’t know when.? The CB’s fortunes turned when new clients, Ivan and Bárbara, visited Unik Edition’s workshop. They’re big fans of the shop’s work and of the Honda brand, and fancied the romantic notion of ‘saving’ the forlorn donor. And other than a few basic guidelines, they were happy to let the crew build it the way they wanted.

Thanks to work done over the years, the CB750’s motor was running just fine when the project kicked off. But the bike itself was less than complete; it was missing its foot pegs and a few other bits, and was standing on flat tires.
Tiago and Luis set to work, transforming the beat-up shop bike into this remarkably elegant cafe racer, appropriately dubbed ?Imp...