Elegance is a word easily ascribed to beautiful, often delicate, objects. But when you can assign it to a purposeful and muscular motorcycle, you know you’re looking at the work of a master craftsman. Tom Simpson of Foundry Motorcycle has certainly earned that accolade over the years, and this 1979 BMW R80 showcases the peak of his skill.
The path of this sublime machine, monikered ‘Midnight Racer,’ has been anything but serene though. A shop project over eight years in the making, the BMW R80 all too often found itself pushed to one side as client commissions took precedence. Then last year, with completion finally on the horizon, the build was interrupted once more.

Tom was informed the rent on his den of over 12 years, was to increase by thirty percent overnight. With new digs to source, multiple project motorcycles, and an entire workshop’s worth of equipment to relocate, it’s fair to say that Midnight Racer has triumphed against adversity. The actual genesis of the build stretches back even further, to when Tom offered the tank from a Moto Guzzi 1100 Sport to the frame of an ongoing airhead project. That machine would go on to become the Foundry ‘Silver Racer,’ a machine to which Midnight Racer owes significant lineage. But the ideas and lines sparked by the sight of that Italian tank sat atop the Bavarian frame persisted, and Tom needed another crack at it.

?Not to upset the purists, but the donor bike was immaculate,? T...