We?re always impressed when a custom motorcycle design is so cohesive, it could easily be a factory effort. Or, at the very least, it has us wishing the factory would produce something similar.
This first-gen Ducati Multistrada illustrates my point wonderfully. The original is anything but cohesive?but somehow Italian shop North East Custom has managed to beat it into shape, producing this fresh take on a contemporary cafe racer.

Based in Padua, Italy, North East Custom is manned by brothers Diego and Riccardo Coppiello. For this project, they started with a 2003-model Ducati Multistrada 1000 DS. Their goal: a radical aesthetic transformation, without messing with how it rides or feels.
Why" Because while Pierre Terblanche’s Multistrada design might not have struck a chord with everyone when it came out (read: everyone hated it), riders praised its abilities as a sports tourer. And that fact is not lost on Diego and Riki.
So they opted to leave the Multistrada’s suspension and basic geometry alone, and even made sure that the rider triangle went unchanged from the stock bike.
As for the rest, Diego and Riki shed every last ounce of the original design, while blending in a number of subtle touches from elsewhere in Ducati’s back catalog.

The fuel tank, for example, is from a Ducati 999. North East had to modify its tunnel to mount it up, and retrofitted the Multistrada’s fuel pump.
Right behind it is a custom tailpiece, hand-shaped from s...