David Coker is an easy talking fellow from Tennessee with a passion for blending the old and the new. His company, Newstalgia Wheel, deals in all those classic style wheels you just gotta have for your hot rod. As a means of showing off those new old stock wheels, he's brought a just finished custom chopper up to the Autorama and it has a delicious steampunk style to it.
Matching old and new is sometimes a delicate art. You don't want to be too retro, and you don't want to be too modern, go one way or the other and a thing just gets kitschy. This bike feels like it hit the mark just right. Based on a 1964 Harley Davidson, the bike has a custom frame with a single sided swing arm, an exposed primary, and what we're assuming are very loud wrapped pipes. This is no ordinary bike though as it has some very clever elements to it. The rear brake is a giant drum from an old Mercury wedged inside of a drag slick. The bike rides on an air suspension and the front Radir spindle mount wheel and vintage tire are suspended by way of an airbag bellows hooked up to a push-pull cable from the flap of a 747. All of that is hooked up to a standard springer suspension lever - very cool. The bike has a faux gas light hooked up to the side of the tank with a regular incandescent bulb inside to light the way. A split tank and wicker foot rests round things out. Even though we're sure this is a deathtrap in the wet, it's a really cool bike, and we may be swiping some of these ideas for our next build up.