Vida Motorcycle has been building Euro-style choppers from their workshop in Fukuoka, Japan, for 17 years. But they’ve also found their groove with high-performing Harley-Davidson FXR and Dyna builds in recent years. So when their latest customer wanted a bit of both in one bike, Vida was poised to deliver.
The commission came from the owner of For Life?an import store that sells American fashion out of the same building as Vida. With Californian style specifically on his mind, Shimazaki-san (known as Shima to his friends) asked Vida to build him the ultimate Harley-Davidson FXR chopper, with no compromises in performance.

?I’ve known Shima for about 15 years, since he first came to our house,? says Vida’s founder, Taku Okubo. ?He’s been riding custom FXRs and Dynas, but he has always admired our choppers. So we got to talking; ‘Let’s make a chopper using an FXR!’? Okubo-san took a 1993 Harley-Davidson FXR and started with the frame; the first port of call for any great chopper build. The tubular backbone was cut and reconfigured with round pipe. It was stretched to mount the fuel tank nice and high, then joined to the extended downtubes with a new neck gusset.

New forks were installed, measuring 8? longer than before. The internals were replaced with upgraded fork springs and preload adjusters, and the lowers were smoothed down. The wheels were swapped out for 19F/18R Sundance-Enkei rims with Bridgestone Battleax rubber, Galf...