my f3 cafe racer

SUZUKI F3 RACER

Designed and built by Andrew Miller

This is my first cafe racer build

This is my f3 racer a cafe racer styled on a 60s Icon. Life for this bike was a hard one used and abused to within an inch of its life and then discarded to rust away in someone's back garden until I found it and rescued it.

I got to work asap and stripped the bike down to Its nuts and bolts.

I had an idea in my head of what i wanted . When my dad was 17 years old in 1960 he got from woods of wallasey a brand new pristine Ducati 125 sport which was imported straight from Bologna Italy. It had the upgraded cam, head and carb basically a road going f3. so i made a GRP mould of the tank and cafe racer seat similar to the one's used on the ducati race bikes of the 60s. anything that the bike didn't need i got rid of lights, wiring loom, rear mud guard, chain guard , seat and tank. I started to clean and restore the wheels , forks , frame and replaced only the things that needed replacing.

These are the moulds i made from my Dad's Ducati 125 sport. This is a rare tank and I suppose I could make another for the right price .hint hint

I used the old filler neck and cap. The tank has 2 layers of chop strand and the resin i used is vinylester not polyester as polyester dissolves. VinylEster is what they use in petrol station fuel containers also carbon fiber construction and is 3 - 4 time more expensive than polyester.

The colour scheme

I went for a traditional Ducati colour . I used Aston Martin Lagonda burgundy and Ford Arizona gold finished of with a white pinstripe. The decal i had made it is the Ducati meccanica logo but I had Suzuki f3 racer inserted