If you grew up in Japan in the 1950s or 1960s, you probably wanted a ?Sonicon Rocket.? It was a little battery-powered spaceship on wheels, made by Modern Toys, with a most unusual mechanism: if you whistled at it, the spaceship would change direction as it rolled around on the floor.
These days, Sonicon Rockets are hard to find, and a good one is worth up to a thousand dollars. They?re also icons of Japanese style, and caught the imagination of Frenchman Séb Lorentz and his partner Laurence, who run Lucky Cat Garage.

Séb and Laurence were so taken with the toy, they?ve styled an entire bike after it?a custom Yamaha XV950R (known in the USA as the Bolt R-Spec).
The bike is a Yard Built commission from Yamaha Motor Europe, it?s called Space Explorer, and it?s one of the most original customs we?ve seen for a long time.
Lucky Cat wanted to keep the Japanese ?cruiser DNA? and soul of the XV950R, but play with the stance and go for a small bagger with a clear Japanese flavor.
Yamaha makes a little-known lowering kit for the XV950R, so that was the first change. A pair of short, adjustable preload shocks and progressive fork springs drops the ride height by an inch without compromising dynamics too much.

Lucky Cat then replaced the original tank with an SCR950 unit, offering a smoother design and a decent fuel capacity of 13 liters.
At the front, the lowered forks have been smoothed out with modified stainless covers originally designed for the Yamaha XVS. Lucky Cat ...