Japanese customizer Suicide Customs scored a convincing first place in the 12th AMD World Championship at ‘INTERMOT Customized’ at Cologne, Germany, October 10th, to take the coveted title of AMD World Champion of Custom Bike Building.
Voted for by the competitors themselves, this is the third time that a customizer from Japan has taken the Championship ring home, and in a close field of Freestyle class entrants, Suicide Customs was the clear choice of his fellow competitors as their Champion for the next two years.
Suicide Customs’ 1000cc V-twin “Rumble Racer” has quite a back story. Crated for dry shipping to Europe several weeks before the show, Koh Niwa had tense days and late evenings at the World Championship before managing to get the bike fired up and completing the necessary run test to be able to qualify for prizing – his determination in the face of tough odds won the admiration of the “Class of 2016”.
In a very broad international spread of top honours, second place, and first reserve champion, went to Michael Naumann of Germany for his Ironhead Sportster-engined “Simple Iron”; with third place, and second reserve champion going to 2010 and reigning 2014 World Champion Fred “Krugger” Bertrand of Krugger Motorcycles in Belgium for his 103” S&S Cycle-engined “LADD”.
Altogether 42 bikes competed in the Freestyle class, with no less than 14 different countries featuring in the Top 20, with the equally back story-rich TEAM USA’s Larry Moore of Wichita, Kansas, taking fourth overall for his bike “Kontrolled Kaos”, with Italy’s North Coast Custom taking fifth for “Alcatraz 521”.
The ever-popular Modified Harley-Davidson World Championship was won by German-Motorcycle-Authority (Christoph Madaus) with his 1340cc (S&S heads) “Milwaukee Mile”.
In an extremely high quality field, this year’s Retro Modified class was taken by PDF Motociclette of Italy with “Big Kahuna”, a 1000cc-engined 1927 JD 8-valve.
Flying the flag for Eastern Europe, the Cafe Racer class was won by Iron Custom Motorcycles (ICM) from troubled Kharkiv, Ukraine with “Beckman”, featuring a hand-made 56bhp, 555сс 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine.
In another success for the small but fast-growing and innovative Irish custom scene, 2013 World Champions Mick O'Shea and Don Cronin (Medaza Cycles) took the demanding Street Performance class with “Road Fever”, a 1978 Ducati 750.
Staged as the lead feature at the first ever ‘INTERMOT Customized’ (October 5th to 9th), the show-within-show concept in Hall 10 at the INTERMOT Expo in Cologne, Germany, was created to showcase international custom industry excellence, and the concept has been widely praised by exhibitors and visitors alike as delivering an inspirational and aspirational show environment that is set to champion the professionalism of the international custom market for years to come.
In addition to the AMD World Championship bikes, ‘INTERMOT Customized’ drew over 100 exhibitors, including several of the leading OEMs such as Harley-Davidson, BMW, Triumph, Yamaha and Kawasaki; Ural from Russia and German V-8 specialist Boss Hoss.
Exhibiting distributors included Custom Chrome Europe and Motorcycle Storehouse, with Warren Buffet owned mail order and retail store specialist Detlev Louis giving a debut to their new Custom program.
Additional ‘INTERMOT Customized’ features in the atmospheric Hall 10 of the Keolnmesse complex included displays from the OEM/aftermarket-backed Essenza ‘Spirit of Custom’ and ‘Sultans of Sprint’ race series, a Garage Area featuring live customizing, technical and workshop displays, photography by legendary motorcycle industry photographer Michael Lichter, and history and memorabilia from the Ace Cafe, London.
The 13th AMD World Championship will be staged in two years’ time at ‘INTERMOT Customized’ at the Cologne Exhibition Center (Koelnmesse) in October 2018. Keep up-to-date with AMD World Championship news by signing up for ‘Custom World’, the Championship program’s official newsletter by e-mailing sara@dealer-world.com
www.amdchampionship.com
