Flamboyant and artistic customiser Marco Matteucci isn't one to shy away from trying something a bit different. Perhaps one of the reasons he's been preoccupied with other marques and it's taken him this long before trying his hand at building a BMW Airhead. With one of Europe's largest custom shows,EICMA, just a month away Marco threw caution to the wind and rolled a 1984 R80ST into the workshop. There might have been just a few Beemers to feature on the Bike shed but I don't recall one with an asymmetric subframe quite like this one. Made from stainless rather than mild steel, I presume for rigidity, the unit picks-up the shock mount on the right side, snakes around supporting the saddle on route to the rear engine/transmission mount on the left. If the owner wanted (why would they) return the bike to standard the rest of the frame remains stock, apart from the dark bronze powdercoat. The engine is of course rebuilt on the inside and painted on the outside offering as-new reliability and a slight pep in performance thanks to a relatively open hand-bent stainless exhaust and turned aluminium velocity stacks. The frontend has been upgraded to a Marzocchi upside down fork, anodised to match the frame of course, with a single Brembo Goldline brake, plenty of stopping power and definite improvement on the standard setup. A Motogadget speedo nestles behind the headstock, leaving the cockpit super clean. The tiny nose fairing is actually a repurposed Harmon Kardon speaker housing, clad in leather. The now ubiquitous M-Unit system runs a new wiring harness and mega bright yet minimal LED barend indicators and strip tail light. Then Marco's arty side needed placating, if he was to build a Beemer it needed to carry his mark, well someone else's as it turns out thanks to Marozzi Interior who upholstered the saddle and clad the aluminium subframe with leather, along with the subwoofer nosecone, before engraving and tattooing them. See, told you Marco was arty. We visited EICMA, met up with Marco and had a good poke around his R80 'Dada' and can attest than he's more than just arty, he's a proper craftsman. More from the Matteucci Garage on Bike Shed Archive | Facebook | Web