When it came time to dress up the bare metal, the Choprods crew went to RS Performance Coatings for a unique greenish/gray ceramic piston coating. This is the same material put on pistons and metal parts to protect against heat and friction. The coating was applied to the Performance Machine wheel blanks, along with the brake rotor carriers, before they were contour-cut into their final shape. RS Performance was also responsible for the orange powdercoat on the gas tank, while master pinstriper Thick laid down the brushed-on pinstriping and Choprod's logos on the handmade aluminum gas tank. Eschewing tradition, there is no chrome on this scoot-anything shiny is polished metal.
Trac Dynamics, a leader in sportbike and dragbike parts and accessories, provided the 4-inch-under inverted forks. On top of the trees, Trac risers hold 7/8-inch-diameter Choprods handlebars. Flanking the down-swept, boardtrack bars are some of the trickest-looking hand controls available anywhere. They're made by the Euro company ISR but are available only through Gard here in the U.S. Red-capped master cylinders for both the PM hydraulic-assist clutch and front brake sit atop the bars. Up front, a small PIAA headlight fits in between the risers and above the Hard Rock Roadhouse aluminum number plate made by MarkKings.
Power for the retro-modern scoot comes from a 93-inch single-cam generator motor with shovelhead-style rocker boxes and a magneto bolted to the front on the right side. Gard bent a custom two-into-one stainless-steel exhaust system from tubing sections scavenged from the motocross company FMF. Sound and gas emanate from a titanium silencer, also from FMF. Power through the PM primary and clutch is transferred to the very first ever Torque Box 5 tranny from Baker. On the blower-looking tranny case, the Baker crew used 12-point hardware to put it all together. Keeping with that theme, Choprod's spent a fortune on matching 12-point stainless hardware from ARP for the entire bike. Once it gets going, the bike is stopped with two-piston drag-racing calipers and 8-1/2-inch-diameter floating rotors from PM.
We hope you've gotten an idea of the ingenuity that went into this bike. It takes a lot of work to make a bike look stripped-down. As for the name, Gard's beautiful wife Sharon came up with that. If anyone but she had suggested that name, he surely would have changed it. He's that modest-but stylish, too. Check out his shirt.
Special thanks go to Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, S&S Cycle/James Simonelli, Performance Machine/Ted Sands/Rick Pruse, Baker Transmissions/Stretch/Bert Baker, Bill Wall Leather, Goodridge USA/Dale Berg, RS Performance Coatings/Bob & Bob, MarkKings/Danny Sutton, FMF Racing/Don Emler/Danny LePorte, Trac Dynamics, Miller Welding Company, and Thick's Pinstriping.