LUXURY Liner

Even when viewed stationary, this rocket looks like it is ready to launch…

- Doc

You may well not have existed back in the early 1990s, but neither did full custom baggers. Until the late, great custom motorcycle genius Arlen Ness – always ahead of the game – began building sleek and low baggers with performance as well as looks. He named them Luxury Liners and they became another stylistic choice for custom bike builders.

This silky sweet example was created by two blokes well known to readers of these pages, Mark and Paul Shadley out of Whitman, Massachusetts, whose craftsmanship is legendary in the high-end custom bike world.

Some might question the choice of an Evolution style engine as the power plant of choice, but that would be a mistake as the 96-cube S&S version puts out a shed load of power and torque. When standing back from this bike I find the somewhat muted colour reminds me of a bespoke Armani suit, which oozes class without shouting it out. It can, however, have one drawback, which is that some of the fine detail can be overlooked. In this case I’m speaking about the machine rounding of the barrels and diamond cutting of the fins and heads, a very classy touch.

Even when viewed stationary, this bike looks like it is ready to launch, itching to get out of the blocks, and power on down the road, a mechanical beast with all the pent-up energy of a crouching tiger on hand, ready to go with just a twist of the wrist. The engine breathes in through an S&S G carburettor and expels the gases through modified D&D Exhaust pipes, the combination punching out 100 ponies and 100 foot-pounds of torque. The spark is fired by a Daytona Twin Tec ignition module.