Not every moment of life can be a fun-filled crazy good time, and in the hours and days that are magnificently mundane, we escape our reality by daydreaming of that next adventure. My father and I once dreamed of building a ’66 Mustang pro tourer, shipping it over to the States and slowly making our way down Route 66. Of course, like most fantasies, it remained fiction but as we’ve come to expect from Croatia’s Incerum Customs, it’s the place you go when you’re serious about seeing your dreams come true. So this father and son headed off to see Antonio and his crew, and have come away with two brilliant BMWs, an R100 street scrambler and an R80 cafe racer, ready to let the good times roll.
For years now, Pozega Croatia has been a hotbed of brilliant BMWs, with customers coming from all over Europe to have Antonio Ferhatović both design and build them the bike of their dreams. Occasionally he ventures away from the boxer twin powdered bikes, but it is with these that he clearly does his best work. And having built some of the world’s best examples, it was no surprise that the father and son duo came calling. But as Antonio explains, while the base bike would be practically the same, the generations have distinct tastes. “They wanted different style builds, the son wanted an all-black bike, and the father wanted something a little more vibrant.”
With the brief sorted and the designs approved, the next job for Antonio was to find a pair of donors, and as we’ve explained in the past, they’re not exactly thick on the ground in Croatia. But he’s always got his eye out and soon found an R100 for Dad and an R80 for his son. The bikes would be built in parallel, and both were stripped down to their bare chassis, rid of their fairings and panniers and the engines set aside on the bench. The preparation of the frame is something that Incerum takes very seriously, and both bikes got the full works.
When dealing with machines that are more than forty years old, careful attention is paid to every weld and bearing, any surface imperfections are sanded smooth and old brackets are cut off to ensure an ultra-clean look. Next, both bikes have the main frame prepared in the same way that Antonio does on any bike, drilling small holes so that as much of the wiring loom as possible can be hidden within its tubes. Each motorcycle then receives a unique subframe to fit with its style, for Dad a post arrangement for an ultra-short look, while his son’s cafe style bike gets an upswept hooped arrangement before each chassis is hit with a matte black powder coat.
The differences in the bodywork are subtle but help to solidify each bike’s unique identity. Dad’s machine has custom mounts that wrap a generous rear fender and blade-style unit for the front, while his offspring’s machine gets heavily bobbed items that are sucked as close to the rubber as possible. Each fuel tank has been restored to perfection, you won’t find a single line out of place, but it’s eye-catching bronze green and graphics for Dad, while his son sticks firm with the all-black everything, with an expertly laid down ghosted pinstripe to really set it off.
As is true of all bikes that roll out of Incerum, the upholstery is done in-house and the luxury cognac/brown leather solo seat helps to set the paint off on pop’s ride. Surprisingly it’s the younger of the family members who has gone for more comfort, and it looks brilliant in black doing it, with the well padded seat finished in a black Alcantara with black stitching.
The final change to the looks also helps to separate out the bikes, with a small mask and tinted visor versus the classically styled stock headlight surround, which has been modified to accept a vintage Motogadget speedo and LED lights the way for each.
To ensure the pair have years of trouble free motoring, each engine and its supporting accessories are completely rebuilt. The carbs get the same treatment and have been re-jetted to suit the breathing mods, which include a pair of pod filters.
On the other side of the heads, the exhausts are both from the Incerum in-house brand FYG, with Dad getting a smooth as can be pair of cross-over pipes, while his son shares the same FYG mufflers, but with individual headers that are wrapped running straight back for a shorter system. The engines are then powder-coated, file-finished and dressed up with their own unique badging for a bang on BMW drivetrain package.
The suspension on each machine is relatively low, with rebuilt front forks protected by gaiters, and a YSS shock for the rear. Both also sport completely overhauled braking systems and benefit from the original twin disc front end for excellent stopping power now that they’ve been refurbished.
The controls are tailored to suit each rider, Dad has a set of inverted classic bars, his boy gets clip-ons and both have had Antonio fabricate CNC’d rearsets to fit their preferred seating position. Before a slew of custom touches, from lighting to number plate brackets and tires finish out the builds.
The pair of perfected BMWs have been built to Incerum Customs’ exacting standards, but their styles suit each rider’s vision of what a boxer twin is to them, and even a pigeon pair must stay true to their own sensibilities.
[ Incerum Customs | Photography by Matej Pilaš ]