Mentioning ‘Triumph’ and ‘Steve McQueen’ together conjures up images of the iconic desert sleds that the King of Cool kicked up Californian dust with. This custom Triumph T140 Bonneville takes inspiration from one of McQueen’s most famous bikes?his number 955 TR6 desert racer. But it’s been built for a very different purpose.
The 1976-model T140 lacks a desert sled’s long travel suspension, big wheels, and tall handlebars, because it’s been designed to dominate on the track instead of in the dirt. More specifically, it’s been custom-made by Shiro Nakajima at 46Works to compete in the Japanese Legend of Classic race series.

We can’t think of a better man for the job than Nakajima-san. A regular on our pages, he’s probably best known for founding the Japanese restomod powerhouse Ritmo Sereno?but he’s also a furniture maker, a vintage car restorer, and one heck of a motorcycle builder. Shiro lives and works in a charming traditional wooden building, tucked away against the foothills of the Yatsugatake Mountains where scenic B-roads abound. But he still regularly makes the trek to the Tsukuba Circuit a few hours away, where he races the classic race bikes that he’s so adept at building. So he knows how to make older bikes look good and go fast.

Shiro put the Triumph T140 Bonneville together for a customer, who supplied nothing more than the frame, swingarm, and engine. McQueen’s ‘955...