I recently had an opportunity to photograph 3 bikes from the Cobra Craft garage; three bikes chosen by the Sydney builder, fabricator and Cobra Craft owner Ken Cevski and the Rocketeer came out of left field as one of his favourites. It would be know you may be thinking to yourself what is it? Well I know it won’t please all our readers but the Rocketeer is a 2006 Yamaha Road liner Japa and like many of today’s Japanese cruisers was built by Japs and designed by Americans thus the name Road liner. The Road liner has mouldings and paintwork reflecting Americana motoring of the 40’and 50’s that of large runs of chrome extruding from panels and whilst a lot of people like the nostalgic look the chrome moulds and paint were the first to go. The Rocketeers owner Nick Xanthakis wanted to give the bike a full over haul and get as close to naked as possible, striped the bike and went about ordering parts, the first on the list was wheels off a Yamaha Raider, the Raider isn’t available in OZ and is the sister bike to the Road liner and is fitted standard with a 21’’ front and 18’’ rear that mount straight on, then the bike was slammed (lowered) the mono shock a couple of inch’s and a set of Freedom pipes fitted. Nick still wanted a nostalgic look of sorts and ran with what he calls 80’s marble with silver blades laid on by Crow Customs Beverley Hills and all the fabrication was done by Ken.
Nick loves the bike and says the final result is a completely different motorcycle, so let me get this straight if it’s a completely different bike why by it in the first place? ‘’ why a Yamaha? Simple! Engine size, I have owned a variety of bikes Harleys and others, it’s 1900cc, its powerful, has plenty of torque and is smooth and handles great for a 350kg bike. The bike was purchased for $12000AUD and as it stands now owes me around $16000, an American bike would cost 10’s of thousands more’’