A Hundred Dollar Parts Bike Becomes A Cafe Racer Beauty

Hey there, got an extra 100 bucks?

That’s what Dat Mai spent on a Suzuki 250 that he expected to use as a parts bike–that is until he realized that he found a gem in the rough! The end result is his Suzuki GT250 Cafe Racer.

Dat quickly changed his mind about this bike and his well-spent $100 and the result is beauty of a cafe racer. He completed much of the work himself, but had some help along the journey. The aluminum seat was a work of art from Junior Burrell @ Retro-Moto while Aston Whitely at 3rd Shift Motors helped Dat with the electricals and showed him how to tune this 250cc powerplant.

The project did not go without its challenges. The paint was a 2-step process–primarily because the first go was far below Dat’s–obvious–high standards. Dat had to wrangle quite a bit to get the painters to see his vision and in the end, one can see it was worth his extra perseverance. The paint scheme and colors were all Dat’s concept–a marvelous combination–true motorcycle eye candy.

Dat was able to keep much of the original machine–reusing the front end, wheels, motor, tank and frame. He painted the frame & swing arm with VHT high temp engine spray and ‘properly’ primed and painted the motor as well. In his garage, with an abundance of elbow grease, Dat assembled, polished, refurbished and replaced a bunch of parts.

She was complete and saw the road in time for the summer of 2014.

Never one to settle on perfection–Dat continues with refinements and minor changes, until, as Dat says, “I’m satisfied.”

Dat chronicled his work in a couple of videos. Check out his progress below:

1974 Suzuki GT250 Cafe Racer Build from Dat on Vimeo.

RetroMoto-74′ GT250 from Dat on Vimeo.