There are meetings that go on at all the major motorcycle manufacturers that I’d love to sit in on. It’s when the management team and bean counters get together and decide which models will be sent to which markets, and far too often they make some horrendous calls. Take the donor bike for today’s build, the Honda NX400 Falcon, which was only sold in Brazil and at low volumes in other parts of South America. Why? It would have been perfect for just about any market, Australia, yes please. All of Asia? Perfect. And to show it’s also got serious custom credentials, Lucky Customs of Argentina have turned out ‘Falcon Sprint’, a mini super hooligan jam packed full of fun.
For nearly twenty years, Lucas Layum has been building all kinds of incredible customs from his workshop in Cordoba. He’s made a reputation for building seriously good Honda Dominators too, so when an example of its little brother, the NX400, came up for sale, he was quick to pounce. And it was an absolute bargain, probably because, as Lucas laughs, “I bought it destroyed, it only had its papers to transfer in my name.” But the frame was straight, and even though the engine was blown, it could be rebuilt and given he only paid peanuts for it, it would serve as a budget base for another brilliant build.
The plan was to create a motard with a mix of super hooligan and the Lucky Customs’ aesthetic, and very soon that NX400 frame was quickly up on the bench. Lucas got to cutting, detabbing, smoothing it all out, and fixing any old welds, before cutting the back of the subframe off to shorten things up. Then, to turn it into a rolling chassis, Lucas had the perfect donor, which had been sitting in a corner waiting for its call-up. The bike in question is a Voge 500, a Chinese sports bike that’s equipped with some quality parts. This particular bike found its way into the Lucky parts bin when its previous owner took it to the racetrack and blew up the engine.
So, Lucas stripped off the pieces he wanted to use and started the process of turning the NX into a serious handling machine. At the front, the forks from the Voge are USD KYB items, and they’ve been made to fit the Honda frame by adding new bearings and getting the spacing spot on. The rear end, however, would require a hell of a lot more work, with Lucas determined to transfer the Voge’s entire swingarm and multi-link suspension onto the NX. Once again, the shock is KYB, with a custom upper mount fabricated and a new swingarm pivot fashioned to make it all fit. The other bonus to the Voge is that it comes with a full suite of Nissin brake gear.
Lucas kept it all and even swapped over the master cylinders to ensure his new brake package wasn’t lacking any power. The final Voge parts to get swapped over are the lightweight wheels, with the rear getting dressed up with a custom carbon fibre cover. For the visual component of the build, Lucas turned to the world of four wheels for inspiration. “Here in Argentina, there was a Ford Falcon that had a model called ‘Sprint’ that came from the factory with more sporty accessories, and it came in orange, black, and white. Since the Ford and this Honda shared the name ‘Falcon’, I decided to name the bike ‘Falcon Sprint’ and take inspiration from the sports car.”
Diving back into his parts bin, Lucas came up with a Suzuki GN125 and modified the mounts to have it sitting perfectly over the NX backbone. Then, with some sheet metal in hand, he mimicked the lines of the back of the tank to create the tail section. The tank and tail are then beautifully merged into one single piece, with a custom leather seat perched on top, made by a good friend of the shop. The super hooligan style heavily influenced the front number board, which has been shaped and moulded for a more 3D effect and then fitted with a Jeep spotlight for the headlight duties. The final piece of bodywork is the lower cowl, taken from a CBR125 and cut and shaped to suit.
A design for the paint scheme was drawn up, and “once the general idea was finished, I began to paint with those characteristic Ford colours and put its original ‘Sprint’ badge on the tank,” Lucas explains. It’s a combination of colours that really work well together, and with an exposed oil tank, some Ford-like trim was added here too. Like a lot of the bikes that leave the Lucky Customs workshop, their signature “speed holes” are everywhere, from the brake pedal to the trim pieces in the tail section, and even added as part of the front number board. And just in case you still don’t know who built this bike, a set of laser-cut and painted trim panels are added down the side too.
Just like its bigger brother, the Domi, the NX400 gets the same RVFC cylinder head, just with a lot less capacity at 397cc. It’s been completely rebuilt from top to bottom, and before it was bolted back into the frame, it was given a coat of black paint and the cooling fins file-finished. To add more of that cool classic car vibe, the carby has a custom air cleaner that utilises a piece of grille from a Kaiser Carabela. The exhaust, however, is all new school, hand-formed stainless steel headers run tight to the engine before flowing under the seat and spitting flames out of a set of carbon, Termi-style mufflers. Even the tacho has some hot rod roots, and ‘Falcon Spirit’ is now ready to be released onto the streets, for all kinds of hooligan fun.
[ Lucky Customs ]