For the last few years, the modern custom motorcycle scene has presented major OEMs with a whole new market in which to peddle their wares. We’re all familiar with the process; release a new motorcycle, run an in-brand customization contest with it, and show off the results at a major event. Lather, rinse, repeat.
These initiatives can produce predictably boring results. But they can also produce gems, like this honed Honda CL250 café racer from Turkey’s Bunker Custom Cycles.

The bike was created as part of, you guessed it, a European Honda customization contest. The brief was to customize a Honda CL500, but Bunker was given a concession to use its little brother, the Honda CL250, instead. Available only in Japan and Turkey, the CL250 closely resembles to the CL500, but trades the latter’s parallel-twin engine for a 249 cc single-cylinder mill. Working with Honda Turkey, Bunker initially penned a design that would amplify the CL250’s neo-retro scrambler aesthetic. But Honda Turkey pushed back, reasoning that a bolder approach would have a bigger impact. After two months of back and forth, the parties settled on a modern café racer design instead.

?Our design approach was mainly to capture the style of racing bikes from the 60s to the 90s, when over-designing bikes wasn’t a thing? says Mert Uzer, who runs the Bunker workshop in Istanbul alongside his brother, Can. ?The color scheme was also an extension of this era.?
21 renderings and 16...