The brief was simple to say and hard to do: a full custom with a long wheelbase — 2.90 metres — a beautiful line and a powerful engine. The idea behind it was a formula: American design, European engineering, Ukrainian practicality. The name came instantly. Fighter. Power and restraint in one motorcycle. It was a client commission, built in our Kharkiv workshop in 2014.
Two seats, one silhouette
Long choppers are almost always solo machines. Stretch a frame to nearly three metres and the passenger is usually the first thing sacrificed — a pillion pad breaks the line, so most builders simply delete it. We made the opposite decision, deliberately. Fighter had to carry two people in genuine comfort, and it had to look organic both ways: a clean, complete silhouette with the rider alone, and just as resolved with a passenger on board. That single requirement shaped the whole bike, and it is what makes this build rare in its class.
The build
The foundation is a Rucker Performance frame — chosen not only for its geometry, but because it allowed the bike to be registered for the road without problems. A show bike that cannot legally ride is only half a motorcycle.
Up front sits a Kodlin 3D fork over a Wicked Image 3.5×23" wheel; the rear is a 10×20" Wicked Image rim carrying a 280/40R20 Avon Cobra, with a 120/70R23 Cobra leading the way.
The engine is a RevTech 100" that did not stay a 100" for long. In the workshop we enlarged it to 110", fitted decompressors and high-lift cams, fed it through a Mikuni 45 carburettor and let it breathe out through a Samson exhaust. Power reaches the rear wheel through a BDL open clutch and primary and a Baker 6-speed gearbox. Brake and clutch controls are Performance Machine, master cylinders are Arlen Ness, grips are OMP, foot pegs are Accutronix.
The swingarm, fuel tank, fenders, oil tank and a long list of smaller parts were made by hand in the workshop. The seat came from Sinelnikov Design in rough marine-series vinyl — it looks clean and it wears well, which matters on a motorcycle that was built to be ridden two-up, often.
Green Plazma
The paintwork uses American paints in a colour we called Green Plazma. In the shade it reads as black-green, quiet and almost restrained. In the sun it shifts through the spectrum. One bike, two characters — which is exactly what the name promised.
The result
A 2.90 m wheelbase, 17 cm of ground clearance and energy-absorbing suspension that actually works. Fighter turned out to be that rare thing: a long chopper that rides as good as it looks, solo or with a passenger, and turns heads everywhere it goes. Today the bike is sold and lives with its owner — which is, in the end, the right ending for a client commission.
