FranzGarage was born in 2010 in Treviso near Venice and was founded by 37 year old Franz Pagnin with Nick, his 25 year old designer and Teo, also 37 and responsible for the the bike's "technical soul", which translates into the tear down, repair and rebuild of their bikes. The guys have been building all sorts of bikes in the last could of years, but we're starting our story with FranzGarage by featuring this 1998 Buell S3 - partly because it's a recent build, but also because we have a serious soft spot for Erick Buell's earlier bikes. Buell's are already pretty much as light as they can be, so unlike most builds on the Bike Shed the basic stance and silhouette of the bike remains largely unchanged, however, when you look at the details and components this bike has been thoroughly reworked, all in deference to the Buell philosophy of lightness & agility. The tank and tail have been replaced with carbon fibre, while the front forks are swapped out for Ohlins legs attached with a new triple clamp, and the rear suspension is from an X1. The frame was also chopped with a near rear-end welded on, and the footrests and controls were reworked. New pistons provide a few more horses and the engine breathes through a hand made exhaust. There's loads more, of course, as you can see from the photos, but we don't want to turn this feature into a list of parts, so let's just chill out and look at it. Sigh... Lovely. We'll have more from FranzGarage soon, as they have a great archive of builds and a 1340 Springer HD on the bench. Pics are by Flashblesst