INTOXIFYIN’
April 2008 – V-Twin Magazine
By: Joe Kress
This One Will Get Your Head Spinnin’
This custom creation kind of looks like that familiar beer bottle, doesn’t it? That’s precisely what Anheuser-Busch wanted when they began thinking about a bike to promote their new Bud Light packaging.
As luck would have it, Austin Weiss had a family member pretty high up in the decision making hierarchy at that giant brewing company. So who you think they turned to for the motorcycle? :
Streamline Designs in Stewart, Florida. “I got the deal.” Austin says. “I sent them some pictures of bikes I’d built in the past and that cemented the deal.” And then he knocked back one tasty motorcycle.
The Guys at Bud said they wanted their bike long and low, extremely cool and extremely clean. Of course it would have to use the same colors as the new Bud Light Alumacan packaging – the exact colors. Other than that, it was all left up to Austin. He drew up plans and started making phone calls. For starters he rang up Renegade Wheels and Jesse Jurrens over at Independent Cycles, setting the theme by basing things around one of Independent’s Hardlife rigid frame packages. On the option sheet, Austin wisely checked off the mid-controls, figuring they’d make the bike lots easier to ride during its publicity appearances. For power, he chose an Ultima 120-inch El Bruto motor and matched it with a RevTech 6-speed. Then the fun started.
“They said they wanted the bike clean, so I really spent some time working the sheet metal,” Austin says. He gave it a look a bit different than most other Independent Hardlife chassis packages. “I molded everything,” he says. “All the brake mounts, a complete mold around the seats. I worked the tank pretty hard, too. It all turned into a lot more metal work and a lot more effort than I thought.” With that tank, for instance, he started off with one of the Independent pieces but ended up using just front of it. He cut it front to back and moved everything around, sectioning it widthwise and lengthwise and severely narrowing it back into the frame. All that sheet metal around the seat and rear fender and down onto the frame is new, and hidden behind it are the brake mounts keeping things clean.
Naturally, all the wires are hidden internally and so are most of the cables. Austin made the exhaust out of stainless, getting it to flows with the same lines as the tank. He even added a little cosmetic work to the Ultima motor, including Streamline’s rocker covers. Pretty cool, all told, and certainly reason enough to kick back with a cool one Bud Light of course.
