?Who wouldn’t want to build a two-stroke Italian Harley"? asks Chris Tope, almost irreverently. ?It?s the original Harley-Davidson Pan America!?
As the ‘Tope’ in Utopeia Moto Company in Texas, Chris is known for building offbeat scramblers stacked with quirky details. His signature style is easy to spot and hard to replicate?so when his latest customer came to him seeking a typical Utopeia machine, Chris had carte blanche.

Right off the bat, Chris knew what donor bike he wanted for the project. ?I’m a sucker for two-stroke motors,? he tells us. ?I’ve also never built a custom Harley-Davidson in my style, only repaired them.?
?So I told him I’d been wanting to build a Harley-Davidson Baja 100 for many years?and if he was alright with it, then that was the bike. My design concept was to make what I think would be the original H-D Pan America of its time. I wanted to add some retro natural colors and incorporate a desert feel.?
For the uninitiated, the Harley-Davidson Baja 100 was a 98 cc two-stroke off-roader, built by Aermacchi back when Harley owned half of the Italian company. Produced from 1969 until 1972, it was designed to help Harley break into the small displacement off-road market. The Motor Co. hasn’t built anything quite like it since.
The Baja 100 that Chris sourced for this build was registered as a 1973 model, and was fitted with a rare 125 cc kit that Harley sold back in the day. The motor and OEM five-speed ...