Written by Martin Hodgson
The last time we visited the rural village of Hino in the Shiga Prefecture of Japan we brought to you Custom Works ZON’s incredible American V-Twin mud muncher that’s been ripping it up in the Suzuka Mountain Range. At the time we teased that while Yuichi San had recently done some work for BMW his bread and butter was cool as can be old school choppers. Returning to his shop, that is a step back in time to custom Harley craftsmen of old, we find his latest creation. A stunning 1947 Knucklehead Chopper with all the fruit for both King and Queen.

There are a thousand ways to customise a Harley and for a while the world went theme bike crazy and to be fair, OCC was not the only offender. But the GFC meant that big dollar choppers that were essentially unrideable pieces of PR for large companies went by the wayside and thank heavens for that. But over in Japan, they never stopped building clean custom choppers just the way they were done in California more than half a century ago.
And that is where Yuichi San and his offsider, Yoshikazu Ueda, draw their inspiration! And it’s often been outsiders who have built the best American iron, Ben Hardy and Clifford “Soney” Vaughs built and designed the most famous choppers ever, the bikes from Easy Rider. But as African Americans were not credited until just ten years ago when apprentice to the masters, Sugar Bear, shared the true story. So it’s all part of the rich tradi...