Spaniard — «Испанец» to the Russian-speaking half of our workshop — is a Harley-Davidson V-Rod from 2002, the very first year of the Revolution engine, the liquid-cooled 1,130 cc V-twin Harley developed together with Porsche. It came to Iron Custom Motors in Cascais as a bike with history, and it left as a single black object: rebuilt from the frame out between May and October 2026, six months of work, with every system underneath the paint serviced as thoroughly as the surfaces above it.
From 2002 to 240
The first V-Rods left the factory with a 200-section rear tyre. This one rides on the running gear of a 2012 V-Rod — front fork, swingarm, both wheels and an offset hub that lets a 240/40 R18 sit centred under the tail, with a 120/70 R19 up front. That conversion is the skeleton of the project: it gives the bike the stance of the late V-Rods while keeping the 2002 character of the engine and frame. We built everything else around it.
Black on black
The motorcycle was disassembled completely and painted completely — not «the bodywork», but every part that could be painted: frame and swingarm, every piece of the plastic bodywork, the airbox cover that V-Rod riders call the tank, the radiator shrouds and the fenders, the brake and clutch master cylinders, the switch housings on the handlebar, the calipers. The only polished metal left is on the engine, which is exactly the point: a matte black machine with the Revolution's cylinder heads and intake runners glinting out of it.
The lower body kit — the chin spoiler that wraps the radiator — was adapted and fitted to the bike properly rather than bolted on, with new mesh bonded into its openings. The seat was re-upholstered in Alcantara with carbon-pattern leather on the sides, so the two textures continue the black-on-black theme instead of breaking it.
The parts that stop, grip and hold
New Metzeler Cruisetec tyres on both wheels. Galfer wave brake discs front and rear, new pads all round, rebuild kits in the calipers and in both master cylinders, braided lines for the brakes and the clutch. New wheel bearings and new steering-head bearings; the fork was serviced while it was out of the bike. The rear rides on Progressive Suspension shocks. None of this is visible from the kerb — all of it is what you feel in the first hundred metres.
Underneath the paint
A rebuild that only repaints a bike is a repaint. This one got the engine work a twenty-year-old V-Rod deserves: valve clearances checked and adjusted, a new clutch with its rebuild kit, engine oil and oil filter, coolant, and a free-flow air filter. The exhaust was refinished in Cerakote ceramic coating and re-wrapped with fresh graphite heat wrap; the silencer carries the Iron Custom Motors mark.
The details
The handlebar sits on taller risers, with new grips and bar-end mirrors. The indicators are Kellermann; at the back, a single Kellermann three-in-one unit does stop, tail and turn, so the rear fender stays clean. Everything the rider touches — levers, switch blocks, mirrors — is black, and everything that is not black is the engine.
The result
A first-year V-Rod with the footprint of a 2012 model, the surface of a single casting and mechanicals as fresh as its paint. It stops the way a bike with new discs, pads and braided lines should, holds the road on fresh rubber and makes the Revolution engine the only thing you look at. That was the brief, and that is Spaniard.
