Put together a top ten list of the world?s best custom bike builders, and Auto Fabrica would have to be in there. The London-based shop has a distinctive signature style, with coachbuilt bodywork draped over minimal mechanicals.
Until now, Auto Fabrica have only worked on classic machines. But they?ve attracted the attention of the manufacturers, and Yamaha has now commissioned a pair of Yard Built customs based on the XSR900?and for good measure, a third prototype built around a 1976 XS750 [below].

The Type 11 project kicked off when Yamaha Europe executive Shun Miyazawa sent over a pre-production prototype of the XSR900, just before it was revealed at the 2015 EICMA show. The final factory design had been locked down, so Bujar, Gazmend and Toby were free to do what they liked with the bike. ?We told Shun we would do something modern with the design,? they say. ?It worked out well for us because we scanned the XSR900 early, and did a form study?knowing that we?d be getting a road legal version a few months later.?

When the second XSR900 arrived, the lads decided to make this factory production bike a ?real world? build. Instead of going to town on it, they?d make it street legal, with a limited custom run in mind.
And then the chance to build a third machine arose. Yamaha had a 1976 XS750 in their design studio, and sent that across the English Channel too.

Three is a record for the number of Yard Built bikes released from a single workshop in one hit, but there?s ...