The donor was a 1981 BMW R80RT fitted with an R100RS engine — a heavy touring motorcycle hiding the right mechanical ingredients for a much leaner street racer.

Building a minimalist motorcycle is not simply a matter of throwing parts away. The best stripped-back bikes use careful engineering to make complex solutions disappear, without sacrificing the way the machine works.

The donor is a 1981 Yamaha TR1, rebuilt as our interpretation of the Doc Chops machine featured on Café Racer TV.

The compact Honda CB350 Four feels almost purpose-built for café-racer treatment: lighter and more delicate than the larger CB fours, with a jewel-like engine that rewards a simple chassis.

The XS850 is big and heavy, but beneath the touring bulk sits a handsome triple and a strong base for a classic endurance-style café racer.

The brief was simple: turn a Yamaha TW into a stripped-down, road-legal custom with the low, functional attitude of a flat-track paddock bike.

Designed in the late 1970s as Honda's answer to middleweight European twins, the CX500 is cheap, durable and mechanically unconventional — exactly the sort of forgotten motorcycle that deserves a second life.

Most riders have crossed paths with a small custom bike that is deeply unfashionable yet stubbornly reliable. For us, the Honda CM125 sits squarely in that category — and that makes it a perfect low-cost custom base.

Another CM125C, but a completely different direction: still small, light and easy-going, this time with a more traditional desert-scrambler silhouette.