When he was 20, Blake put a Chevrolet Corvair engine in a Harley-Davidson frame. Over the years, he has owned 55 motorcycles. He designs furniture and boats which have been featured in various magazines in the past, but this is Blake Morley’s first attempt at really customizing a motorcycle.
While furniture and boat design has taken up Blake’s professional life, he decided that some of his personal time should be taken up by his real passion for two wheels and decided to radically re-design a motorcycle. Blake admits that while he has owned various makes like Harley, Triumph, BSA, Yamaha and even NSU, it’s his affinity for Honda that take up about 30 of those 55 bikes.
This motorcycle featured, began as a 1999 Honda SE Gold Wing, but Blake being a fibreglass guy had other ideas of what the bodywork could, or should, look like.
Blake resides in BC and works for boat manufacturer Svfara Marine. He has designed the deck ‘plugs’ for their last two models, so to say his experience in fibreglass design and production is extensive would be an understatement.
The redesign of this Gold Wing consists of ten newly designed panels, each of which is a huge job in itself. He had to first make the ‘plug’ for each panel (the plug is the first part of a molded fiberglass piece), then the ‘mold’ (the mold is made from the plug and is the inside shape of the final piece), and finally the ‘part,’ which was sprayed on the mold with fibreglass chop at Svfara Marine. Many of the other modifications that make up the bike are designed and manufactured by Blake such as the new glove box, which meant relocating the ignition switch, Ninja LED taillights and the switches for the air suspension and light controls. Blake redesigned and relocated the reverse lever, license plate bracket and too many other parts and modifications to mention in this space.
The bike took Blake about one year of fairly steady work to complete but he has only had the bike on the road since the middle of July. Finished in Fresco green pearl, dark green valve covers and Aspen green graphics, Blake has already won a trophy in his first-ever bike show and draws a big crowd wherever the bike goes.
