The Aero looks like a big bike at first, especially in pictures with its big fenders and proportionately fat tires and seemingly large tank. But it's not. Wheelbase is only 64.5 inches, the seat hangs just 25.9 inches above the asphalt, and dry weight is a fairly feathery 519 lbs. To turn this bike into a steroidal bagger would force it beyond its natural purpose. Considering the engine size and lightweight chassis, I saw the Aero as athlete, stripping down to naked bone and muscle. The machine looked like it wanted to lose everything it didn't need; it wanted to release its inner bobber.
My build crew agreed. On one sunshiny Southern California day, Jason Wilson of Sacred Steel Custom Metal Works (fabrication), Seth Boldman of Aggressive Designs (paint), Pascal Cooper of RiffRaff Leatherworks (seat, other cow bits), and myself encircled the VT750, figuring how we can make more out of less. I knew this was going to be fun when we all decided that taking stuff off and throwing it away was going to be our design mantra.
There was only one problem--Honda gave us a tight deadline. They wanted to display the done machine at the Honda Hoot, which was only three months away.
Calls went out to Cobra Engineering, Kuryakyn, Thunder Manufacturing, Dakota Digital, Pingel Enterprises, and Honda for parts. Everything went just like clockwork and three years later we were right on time. Well, Honda didn't really make it perfectly clear which Honda Hoot they were talking about. Well, maybe they did, but I'm sticking to my story.
Somehow, the project seemed cursed. All those gathered together at this great creative birth, said, nay, swore, that morphing the stock Aero into one supercool, original, bobber-like thing within the time allowed would be a piece of cake. No worries. The bike was shipped that day to Wilson's fab shop for disassembly. The front fender was tossed, the tank removed for some reshaping and stretching, and the rear fender sliced up. Wilson donated a ‘50s era cat taillight that looked like it was sitting on the shelf since James Dean died in a ball of fire and Porsche parts. Cool.
Let this be a lesson to you that I have had to relearn many times: Murphy's Law is a scientific fact. Everything that could go wrong, surely did. Initially I thought, damn, I'm good, I've got the power. I'm going to get all these knuckleheads to work and play well with each other, meet an unlikely deadline and slam down a show winner. It would be a glorious victory of man and machine.
It all started so nicely. Cooper did a marvelous job creating a beautifully hand-tooled seat. He also carved his signature skull artwork into a Honda leather tool bag and handgrips, and decided the bike's plastic side covers needed the same treatment. Funny thing, though, got some inspiration from somewhere, perhaps the feline shaped taillight, to etch the name, "Sex Panther" into one leather-clad panel. Must be a French thing. Cooper jumped on the work and finished everything within a couple of weeks.
And then it all went to friggin' hell. Wilson's girl dumped him, his right-hand man quit on him, worked backed up like a blocked sewer pipe and the project was almost instantly knee-deep in poop soon as we started. By the time Wilson was done with his portion, we were weeks behind schedule. But the plot thickens.
Parts then went to paint. You would think it wouldn't take long to spray a tank and a wee little bobbed fender, but then you'd be so wrong. Soon after Boldman joined the project, his business boomed and he had to find a larger location. A year later, Boldman would not finish the work nor give it back, the builder (who wishes to remain nameless) who was going to reassemble everything, add the aftermarket parts and do the requisite tweaking and tuning, dropped out mostly because too much time had elapsed.
Meanwhile, the fabricator and painter, who before this mess were close buddies, now wanted to each other to perform unnatural and mostly impossible acts on themselves and every blood relative, living or dead. No telling what would happen next.
Stay tuned for Part II of "In Pursuit of a Perfect Murder." Will someone get away with a most heinous crime, will the Honda Sex Panther ever be built or will its curse drive everyone who touches to madness?