In 1998 I began working for a startup motorcycle manufacturing company in Belle Plaine, MN. For the next 18 months I was part of a team that brought the Super X motorcycle to life as part of the styling department. I won’t go into the details of how and why the company failed, there’s plenty of that info online for those who want some background. But the bike deserved a life—its as SO cool.

What I’m attempting is the bring that wonderful heavyweight cruiser back to life in 1:8 scale. To achieve this I will employ scratch building; mold making; 3D modeling and 3D printing; and lastly, custom decals. While this task is a daunting pursuit, I am armed with my old computer drawings and the factory owner, service and parts manuals.

The goal is to build at least two bikes:

1. Either the first Super X - code named “Glory” in black or a two-toned blue/silver version as presented in the initial promotional materials.
   

   

   
   

   

2. The first Deadwood Special - This bike is near & dear to my heart as the configuration and theme came from my concept work. We built two prototypes as photo bikes prior to the 2000 Sturgis bike rally. Code named “Jake & Elwood” for the Blues Brothers. I babysat these builds down the assembly line and fired up Elwood and rode it around the parking lot prior to loading it into the trainer for a photo shoot.
   

   

   
   

   

   
   Wish me luck. Hoping to chronicle the start-to-finish process.

This is a superb entry, my friend @coondog! Modeling at another level!
Amazing progress already!

Starting working on the 3D modeling. The floorboard was a an easy extrusion so I did that first just to learn the software. I'm using a program called Shapr3D. Mainly because the interface is pretty user-friendly and one can work on both iPad & desktop with a common interface.

The second art is the front end rigid fork. I figured I'd start with the front end and work back from there since it's a pretty complicated leading-link suspension. More to come.

Those are some nice drawings, Matt @coondog

Fantastic modeling, my friend @coodog!

This is a completely different world of modelling to the one I live in, @coondog, looking forward to following your progress after this great start.

Very impressive, Matt @coondog

I've found a new obsession in 3D modeling parts. It really feels like I'm building the model twice. The first time is drawing the 2D art and using that as a blueprint to model the 3D parts and the second will be actually building the bikes after all the parts are generated.

Some may say this isn't "scratch-building" in it's pure sense, but I beg to differ. Creating parts as accurately as I can in the computer from the photos, manuals and memories is, in my mind, pure scratch-building. Plus, the added benefit of learning a new skill. I should be tracking the hours spent on this project, but what's the fun in that?

At any rate, here is the front end assembly with the headlight in place. I played with a front fender, but it's not perfect, so I will re-visit that part later. The free-form building is a real challenge.

I have moved on to the heart of the beast—the engine. The Super X "X-Twin" engine was an 85 ci, 50 degree v-twin originally developed by Weslake out of England. It was later refined and sculpted into a pretty sexy powerplant. Here we see the raw cylinder without the intake/exhaust ports carved out. As in most of the parts I've created to date, I needed to reverse engineer my thinking to build the parts in a way that the software would allow me to construct the desired end result. After living in the 2D graphic design world for 30 years, this is challenging at times.

And finally, me and a fellow E-H staffer at the Laconia New Hampshire Bike Rally, Father's Day 2000. I'm on the left.