BRITISH BOBBER

Triumph Thunderbird 6T bobber

by West Town 1 • Bristol • United Kingdom

George Osborne has been building custom motorcycles since the age of 17, and he did it himself. At 23 years old George already has built 12 custom motorcycles! Ranging from many Harley-Davidson's, vintage Triumphs, and classic Honda's.
This here featuring is his polished 1955 Triumph Thunderbird 6T, 650cc engine version, born shortly thereafter the 500cc to give the added horsepower American customers demanded.

From an early age George got his taste of design through high end fashion, he was always into that particular "style" that models would wear on the runway. They always catch your eye. The contrast of colours on clothes give him great ideas. George like to build his motorcycles as if they were a piece of jewellery also, they have to have elegance and flow with every touch of intricate detail.

This Thunderbird 6T bobber fully reflects this philosophy. The hard tail frame was an old design, apparently it was made in the 1980's. The rear end is running a 4" drop which he remastered, with a Harley 1" headtube to fit the springer forks.
The headlight mount George machined out of aluminium (he does this for all his motorcycles) and he try to hand make all the parts he can on his builds. It's all about the fine detail for him.

George rebuilt both wheels, running a 21" upfront to get that board track stance, and 16" rear to get the thing low! Both are aluminium. He permanently borrowed his grandfather's leather camera box, he modified that so he could house a battery inside which looks pretty cool. His grandfather didn't mind in the end ahah, it was just kicking around in his garage. George used the bars from an old Harley, cut them down then bent the ends about 5 degrees more to get further sweep.

The engine of this Thunderbird 6T was rebuilt by himself, which took a long time as he's not use to the Pre Unit Triumph engines (previously George has always built Unit Triumphs). After rebuilding the engine he cut the primary case converted it to a belt so it was all dry sump and had the whole thing exposed! It looked great.

This Thunderbird bobber was ultimate statement machine, as it catches your eye like an odd piece on the runway.

 

Ultimate statement bobber