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.

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.

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.