[motorcycle.com] - What to do when your Confederates Brakes Fail? Build the Revival 1

[Ninjette Newsbot]

You rebuild it of course, and make it better, just like Steve Austin the “Six Million Dollar Man”!

It’s all in the latest PRESS RELEASE from Revival Cycles:

A long time client and good friend of the shop had a small mishap on his Confederate Hellcat due to a brake failure. Instead of a simple repair to the dented tank or the scratched engine, he turned to his friends at Revival and asked for some inspired ideas on a possible transformation beyond its factory looks. Of all the projects Revival has undertaken, this was by far the most challenging design-wise. Not necessarily from a technical standpoint, as the original chassis and most of the electrics would remain, but from a purely aesthetic point of view.

The challenge lay simply in the fact that the Confederate Hellcat (and all Confederates for that matter) have a very distinct visual design ethos and it isn’t exactly an empty canvas that will easily accept changes. Alan, our founder, obsessed over sketching out many simple drawings, images, shapes, cardboard bucks, and taped line drawings. The final winning design came from a combination of several inputs from the team as always. Built into Revival’s DNA is that a team’s vision and execution is better than any one person’s and there is no better example of that coming true than with this Confederate project. A cohesive design only came together for the project when the group chimed in.

The major restrictions were to keep the frame/engine/suspension untouched mostly original, yet transform the motorcycle into something that properly paid homage to the original. Many might say that a Confederate is enough on its own, but how could Revival NOT take advantage of this damaged machine and take it a few steps further in the styling department?



A hand formed alloy fuel tank was sculpted to fit the Hellcat’s backbone and the new more upright seating position. Then a CNC-machined subframe was fabricated in a similar way that the original was, but in this case it ended up being entirely more organically shaped. With the intention of raising the seat height and hiding the ECU new shapes were totally necessary for the cockpit. Inspired by the original seat, Revival stitched up bespoke leather seat. A hand formed alloy tail section has been fabricated along with a unique fuel tank. Once the fuel tank and tail section were in place, complementary asymmetric panels covering the oil cooler on the left hand side and the air intake on the right hand side were fabricated. The mesh screen was laser cut to match the primary cover screens, as well.



THE REVIVAL 140 // in motion from Revival Cycles on Vimeo.

See the video!

From there, Revival utilized a xenon projector headlight from and Audi S8 and built a hand-formed alloy surround to give the nose more visual interest. The original exhaust was deemed unsightly and simply covered the engine up entirely too much. Therefore a new stainless steel exhaust was built complete with a hand-built 2-into-1 silencer that hangs down and exits beneath the engine towards the ground. The grumble and sound that results is intoxicating. One of the finer touches of the earlier Hellcats was the bellypan/muffler which was removed on later models due to fabrication failures. As an homage to its roots a new hand shaped alloy bellypan has been fabricated to conceal the exhaust and engine underside with hidden exhaust cutouts and mesh air scoop insert that allows for more airflow and a smooth clean appearance.

To make the motorcycle more comfortable and controllable, a bespoke handlebar clamp was machined to remove the factory clip-on bars and more carefully blend with the Confederate triple clamps. This improves the rider ergonomics greatly and means a day-long ride won’t kill the rider. Revival Cycles’ own push-button alloy housings have been fitted to the handlebars along with alloy push buttons for a simple cockpit that feels and functions as good as it looks. Beringer brake and clutch controls compliments of Confederate round out the controls for incredible braking power.

At the end of the day Revival considers this to be their most challenging design yet and couldn’t be happier with how well it turned out. Revival dubbed this one “The Revival 140” as any motorcycle that weighs less than 500 pounds and has 140 foot pounds of torque DESERVES to be known by that name.


Revival Cycles




What to do when your Confederate’s Brakes Fail? Build the Revival 140 appeared first on Motorcycle.com News.



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