Fredrik PÃ¥l Persson has faced a few challenges in his time. First, he switched careers from chef to bike builder. Then he had to mortgage his house to keep his company PAAL Motorcycles afloat.
More recently, he picked up a client with a most unusual brief: build a Honda cafe racer to reflect an interest in vintage locomotives…

These days, PAAL is fortunately in a good space. The Swedish company has an investor on board, four people on the payroll, and two workshops: a custom studio in Malmö, and a garage specializing in engines and vintage Hondas in Växjö, a couple of hours? ride north.
This is ?PAAL XXX,? the thirtieth build from the Malmö workshop, and it began life as a 1983-spec CB750?which means it has the DOHC engine and was sold as the ?Nighthawk? in the US.
?This build started with a very specific request from a Norwegian gentleman at the end of 2016,? Fredrik tells us. ?He wanted us to build him a classic, vintage-style cafe racer showcasing the English racing heritage from Norton, BSA, and Triumph.?
?But it needed to be based on a 1980s Honda CB750?updated with modern performance parts, for reliability and the riding experience.?

The request came with a twist: the client also wanted PAAL to somehow reflect his passion for vintage locomotives, with a color scheme of black-and-gold.
Fredrik started hunting for a donor bike, and found a CB750 that had been sitting in the open air on a farm in Norway for roughly 20 years. ?The bike was in horrib...