BRITISH-AMERICAN MONGREL

Few sports chassis have been built for Harleys, here's the story of one …

- ALAN CATHCART

Generalisation it may be, but most special-framed Harleys are built for show, not go. Whether aimed at Daytona's annual Rat's Hole Hogfest or your local equivalent of the Chelsea Cruise, the idea of wrapping a special chassis round an H-D V-twin, ancient or modern, generally has only one objective: making it look cool by making it look different, usually in stretched, lowered or other visually extreme form. The idea that anyone might actually re-chassis a Harley in order to improve the handling is just so much Hogwash: hey - this is Milwaukee's finest, right? If God intended Harleys to handle, he'd have made Willie G. marry Tamburini's sister. What you see is what you get: now go ahead and customise the hell out of it, just like any other righteous Hog-owning dude.

Except, there's always an exception to every rule, and Adrian Pavey wasn't your average Harley freak. In fact, the first Harley Métisse off the Bristol production line of the then-owner of the Rickman brothers brand, MRD boss Pat French, was not only Adrian's first-ever Hog, it also came hard on the heels of the SB3 Bimota, Rothmans-livery Honda VFR1000, Suzuki RGV250 and GSX-R1100 which had been its immediate predecessors in the Pavey garage. Indeed, to meet the costs of building the Harley, Adrian had to sell his GSX-R750L everyday bike, as well as the Suzuki drag racer he'd been lighting up the strips of Southern England with for the previous couple of years. Bit of a sacrifice, Ade: how come?