Battle of the Kings: Stay Gold

Whether it reminds you of Robert Frost's famous poem or the reference in The Outsiders, the term 'Stay Gold," means the same thing: stay fresh, vibrant, and don't let time jade you. For this year's Battle of the Kings, H-D Onorio Moto went with a style different from any other shop out there, that of an Italian manufacturer rarely heard of over here in the US: Malanca.

Malanca was a small manufacturer out of Bologna that was popular for their two-cylinder 125cc engines in the seventies, before going out of business in 1986. Their style however, was enough to leave a lasting impression on some of the builders at H-D Onorio Moto. Two of the main builders have been in the industry long enough to remember the Malanca, and have set toward breathing new life into this awesome retro style.

It looks like the original wheels have stayed, though they've been classed up with a little line of gold paint. The rear fender was removed to make room for the longer, 70s style bench seat, and a license plate mount/ blinker and taillight setup was added. A set of old school chrome slip-on cone mufflers replace the stock blacked out ones and do wonders in the way of restyling the bike. While the stance looks like it hasn't really changed, the stock Roadster comes with blacked out shocks in the rear and these ones look more like shorter stock Sportster shocks with a little extension on the bottom. Low-slung clip-on handlebars were installed with classy retro diamond grips. Most of the trim, as well as the frame, was painted with some gold to help tie the whole color scheme together.

Retro good looks with the modern performance of H-D's best handling Sportster model; it's all a win to me.

Voting is closed but Stay Gold made it into the finalists of the Custom Kings Competition. Head over to Custom Kings to see the bikes we've featured already and see Harley-Davidson's site here for the rest of the bikes!