Tag Archives: vintage motorcycle restoration

Restoration Project: Hodaka “Combat Wombat”

Restoration Project: Hodaka "Combat Wombat"

Hodakas incorporated competition-proven frame geometry, while at the same time attending to required street-legal equipment—though with minimalist (lighter weight) treatment. Built from 1964 through PABATCO’s demise in 1977, Hodakas were loved, at least initially, by the press and the riding public—possibly for relating to buyers as riders rather than simply customers—and filled a role in motorcycling not unlike American Motors Corporation in the automotive world: a small energetic competitor nipping at the heels of a sometimes deaf and monolithic establishment.

Motorcycle Preservation and Restoration Part 2.

  MOTORCYCLE PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION   And so, given our discussion of the motor vehicle as both historical/industrial artifact and art object (our last article: Preservation and Restoration), what should we do with that old motorcycle in our possession? Preserve it for posterity, or restore it as art? In earlier times, contemplating simpler (non-industrial) objects, […]

Preservation and Restoration Part 1

 Motorcycles as Artifacts In the course of this article installment I have used the Maico motorcycle as the lens through which American sport motorcycle culture was examined. Now, looking back to this motorcycle—material culture, art object, utilitarian racing machine, or however else we may wish to think of it—what are we now to do with […]