A Cafe’d Goldwing.

Regular contributor Chuck Lathe from North Carolina was kind enough to grab some shots of this modded Goldwing. I’ve always liked these builds. A lot of folks don’t know that the original Goldwings were intended as performance bikes and they only became tourers when folks started setting them up that way.

Just noticed the wwwwiiiide handlebars! Jebus!

Thanks again Chuck!




  1. Contemplating….

    Don’t really think it fits into the “cafe” category anymore than a custom dumptruck fits into the “hot rod” category.

    I’d refer to it as a “custom”. Not really in the description envelope of a cafe bike.

    1. Yeah I wasn’t quite sure what to call it exactly. I has a tracker style seat but… no.. it’s no tracker. It seems lately that “cafe” is applied universally to just about anything with low bars so what the heck. :-/ shrug..

  2. Mike. Go to E-bay and check out a seller that goes by the name of “Hotwing” I think that might be one of his seats. Or try his site: http://www.hotwingglass.com/ and hit the Darkwing model. Don’t ask how on earth I might know this. I have used his seats before and they are very solidly laid up.. Hope this helps.

  3. I like it, but it’s not a tracker or cafe, or even a chopper; it’s a custom, period. I’d put a skinnier front tire but it’s pretty cool. A friend put a hidden 3-71 blower up under the “tank”, (re-routed the top frame tubes), and had the air horn for the Holley 500 cfm sticking through it. Very fast bike, especially for the 1970’s.

  4. in 1973/74 Honda built the goldwing as a high performance machine for the race track…it had liquid cooled engine,fuel pump, dual disk brakes on front and single disk on rear, fuel was under seat, and light fake panels for place of gas tank, low handle bars…and was a plain bike….so 1975 it goes into production and sold….think back to that year….what else was on market that could go from point A to point B without failure…..nothing if A to B was more than 500 miles…so the goldwing took on a new form, Vetter was already making fairings for other bikes so they quickly became a norm for gold wings,,,not untill 1979 (first year gold wing was made in USA) did honda build a bike with option of fairings from factory/dealer… so call this bike what you wish, cafe fits because its stripped down hot rod to race from one cafe to next…if you wish, as the term was born across the pond…or bobber, again its stripped down bobbed rear fender and parts removed, as with many american bikes, flat tracker, possible, but any street bike wanting to be a flat track bike is missing the mark by a long shot, im not removing my brakes and left foot peg just for it to be called a flat tracker…lol ohhh and as for the fat front tire, that looks to be stock size for the 1200cc goldwings. all and all, this is a nice job of returning a goldwing back to what it was born to be, a bad ass hot rod!

  5. just if ya wanna know…..1975, first Triumph this year was not making bikes(strike) they did make a few..but at 49hp/750cc/387lbs it was in difrent world….but close to hondas own cb 750 at 67hp/518lbs top speed 118mph suzuki had a swing at the plate with the water buffalo 750cc 52hp/553lbs 106mph yamaha didnt have nothing close that year, and then the big boy/bad ass kawasaki Z1 900cc 81hp 564lbs top speed 134mph(fastest production bike at the time) now we have the gold wing….1000cc 82hp/650lbs top speed 121mph now we can see how honda was reaching for that hot rod performance, the shaft drive and extra lbs…are what sent it into the other world…of tour bike…ohhh and you Harley guys sorry…75 FLH 58hp/1200cc/760lbs top speed 83.9 and sportster was 57hp/1000cc/529lbs that brings me to a new topic…why are sportsters called little bikes???????? for nuther day….keep shinny side up!

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