For a couple of years in the late 1970s, Harley-Davidson made a café racer called the XLCR, which featured singular styling quite unlike the company’s hefty choppers. Unfortunately, it didn’t sway riders in the US at the time, and less than 2,000 units were sold.
Inspired by that brave departure, the brand recently unveiled the RMCR, a performance-focused concept that really pushes the envelope with its brash custom shop styling. We’ve got more pictures than details at the moment, but scroll through and you’ll see that’s not really a bad thing.
This prototype is mostly carbon fiber, and it’s built around the fierce 1,250 cc Revolution Max V-twin platform that made an appearance in the Pan America and the 2022 Nightster.
Harley-Davidson
There’s plenty to love here. Direct your gaze to the compact two-into-two Akrapovic exhaust snaking its way to the rear, where a sharp pillion cowl caps the seat.
Harley-Davidson
The classic bikini fairing harks back to the original café racer’s front end, surrounding a pair of awfully low-slung clip-on handlebars and dual electronic clocks behind a compact visor.
Harley-Davidson
A closer look reveals carbon fiber all across the bodywork, fairing, cowl, fuel tank lid surround, and radiator guard. This machine is beautifully detailed, down to the custom sprocket guard and the quilted seat.
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson showed this off at the Mama Tried motorcycle show last month in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s now asking people what they think of this one-off that its design department cooked up.
Harley-Davidson
Drop the company a note on Instagram and let it know that this one needs to roll off the assembly line and onto asphalt, like right now.
Harley-Davidson
The company has generally remained pretty focused on cruisers and choppers, but given that it did tremendously well coloring outside the lines with the Pan America Adventure Tourer, it could score another home run with a low-slung street machine – especially if it looks as good as this.
Source: Harley-Davidson (Instagram)