Cobra, was a small two-stroke pipe manufacturer
run by Tim McCool and Ken Boyko back in the early '80s. They moved into the
Japanese street bike market in the latter part of the decade, riding the
increasing popularity of the Cruiser market. Then in 1994 they stumbled on
an interesting marketing idea - they built a full-blown custom using a Honda
Magna as the basis for the project. The bike was a hit and their pipe sales
took off. From '94 on, seeing what Cobra did with a metric cruiser each year
has been one of the highlights of the motorcycle industry trade show each
spring.
Well, good business dictates expanding your market, so Cobra started looking
at the Harley world. They realized that there was room for another pipe
manufacturer in the market and they decided to go after their part of the
pie. To get a little attention they decided to build a custom bike that the
V-twin market would notice, so Boyko and McCool brought in their favorite
fabricator, Denny Berg and sat down with their in-house design guy, Mike
Rinaldi. They poured over magazines and books trying to come up with a style
for a custom Harley that no one had done before. They didn't fare so well,
because everyone had done basically everything already. But there was a
bright spot - only a handful of people have done boardtrack-style bikes,
namely Ness and Milwaukee Iron.
Armed with a Rinaldi sketch everyone liked, Berg took control of the
project. His first stop was Harbor Freight where he bought a pipe bender. On
his way back to the tiny 1,000 square foot shop he calls home he made one
other stop at a Harley dealership where he picked up a TC88 motor and
transmission, along with a Dyna swingarm. |
|
