Paint Your Wagon!

As cool as she looks naked in the living room, it’s now time to fix the GSX-R 10/11’s clothes and get her ready for that first road-ride date.

- Martin Child

I just can’t watch the TV. This is mainly because what's on it is so rubbish that it’s depressing... but it’s also because I’m easily distrac… oooh, what’s that?

The cause of my eyes-right is the mix of metal and rubber that sits alongside the goggle-box. Yup, black, grey and more black, Project 10/11 is certainly living up to the cool dream. It’s worthy of being mounted on the wall, as a threedimensional offering to the Gods of Motorcycle Art. But that would be a waste of this bike’s potential. And the easy way out…

So I find myself back in the garage, surrounded by the various panels that make up 1986’s cutting-edge superbike vision. In total, there are 15 different panels that wear paint – the fairing consists of seven of them, then there’s the tank, front guard, side-panels, rear panels, tail-light panel and solo seat cover. All, bar the front black mudguard, need some level of loving before final colouring. I’d decided on a red/black colour scheme way back at the start of the build, before settling on the stock scheme of the 1985 GSX-R750F. I wanted a scheme that hid the size of the rear panels – so it had to be black on the lower part of these. That ruled-out the trademark and more popular blue/white colours. But that’s cool with me, I’m not doing all this work to fit in with the masses and I’ve no intention of selling the final creation. The next hiccup is that the 750 and 1100’s fairings and tanks aren’t the same size and shape. So that’s a sticker kit I’ll have to make, too. Just add it to the list…