It is rare that a custom motorcycle tickles my fancy quite like the “Hasty Flaming Buffalo” here has. I am an absolute sucker for simplicity, motorsport inspiration, and old school cues. And this bike from LM Creations has all of that and absolutely nothing else. It is ostensibly a visual recreation of a 1910-era Indian board track racer, but with a modern Scout V-twin and lots of modern materials, like carbon forks.
This bike was designed by Luuc Muis for the Benelux Bigtwin Bikeshow and Expo held in the Netherlands, and it was judged as this year’s “Project Scout Bobber” contest winner. It looks about as rough and tumble as a motorcycle can, with very little consideration for rider comfort. This is all about raw speed on the timber race tracks of a hundred years ago.
The project started out as a 2-dimensional drawing, and once that won the contest, the race was on to turn it into a ride-worthy 3D piece of motorsport throwback art. It went from paper to race track in just 20 weeks of design, fabrication, paint, and assembly.
“As an industrial product designer, this contest was something I had to enter. I wanted to explore the idea that, if over 100 years of motorcycling, materials and techniques had developed but visual design hadn’t, what would that look like,” says Luuc.
This is a pretty cool idea, if you ask me, which of course you did not. Similar concepts have been done in the world of cars before, but I’ve not seen it in bikes until now.
Obviously the bike shares no part of the frame with a current Indian model, but the 100 horespower 69-(nice)-cubic inch DOHC liquid cooled V-twin is carried over, as well as the 6-speed gearbox. The stock Scout Bobber runs with a weight of 552 pounds, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Buffalo cutting a figure a couple hundred pounds lighter. The Scout Bobber is pretty minimalist as street bikes go, but this has a shorter wheelbase, a less beefy frame, a smaller tank, and none of the very few ancillaries found on a big boy Scout. Look at those Akrapovic custom-built straight pipes! God, I bet it scoots.
I can only envision the myriad ways in which this bike would kill me dead as soon as I sat astride it, but I still want to feel the awesome pulse through me as I grip it and rip it toward death’s door. Even if it’s the last thing I ever do, I want to mount the Hasty Flaming Buffalo. I will gallop headlong—fully aflame—into Valhalla and together with this bike we will conquer all who face us.
I wonder if you have to be deemed worthy to wield this bike, like Mjolnir or something.
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