Building a café racer with an older motorcycle usually involves two phases; getting the bike running, and customizing it. And if the bike is really beaten up, the first phase can be the hardest?especially if the engine is too far gone.
Marshall Hewitt had a novel approach to this particular challenge. This ex-police 1991 BMW K100 was a true basket case when he found it, with a seized engine among the myriad issues that needed attention. So Marshall side-stepped the problem entirely, by simply yanking the engine out and replacing it with a modern electric powertrain.

An automation engineer by trade, Marshall has been building café racers as a hobby for a few years now. He normally works on bikes with internal combustion engines, but he’s not averse to trying new things. So converting the BMW K100 to electric was more than just a way to get the bike back on the road?it was also an opportunity to develop an all-new platform. ?I’ve always loved the look of a stripped-down café racer; just a frame, engine, tank, and wheels,? Marshall says. ?But going electric would totally throw that off?so I wanted to build one that honored that original stripped-down look. My goal was to maintain the stock and iconic look of the K100 engine, A.K.A. The Flying Brick; intentionally deceiving onlookers from even knowing it was electric.?

To achieve this deception, Marshall yanked the K-series engine out of the frame and 3D-scanned the whole thing. He then designed a set of co...