The backstory for the Fighter begins on a balmy South Louisiana journey down Old Highway 61 between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Following a glorious law school graduation celebration, my best friend and I were cruising, top down, in my 74 Jensen Healy, at 80 plus around Sorento at midnight, when suddenly and thunderously, a contingent of Sons of Silence riders on skinny, long, stripped, stroked, shovel heads blew by in perfect formation on the bleeding edge.
The character of this bottom-up American mechanical expressionism spawned a genre of post modern caricatures, culminating in popular TV personalities and factory choppers.
The challenge for us, which has been simmering for quite some period of years, was rooted in creating an honest architectural echo of what the pure essence of these machine forms mean.
We begin with the geometric right triangle; a simple display of implicit strength. This form, to meet the true to concept test, had to be function driven. Thusly a 30 degree neck was lowered to visually live at 45 degrees relative to the prominent backbone. Leanness is implied through the acute narrowness of the design. Minimal, skeletal uncompromised craftsmanship is transparent; this illuminates the significant role the Fighter is destined to play in the life of its “purist” owner. Extreme light weight with big displacement massive torque speak truth to real power. The avant guard element lives in the negative spatial aesthetic relationships which organically create the gestalt of the machine. Therein is expressed the dark unspoken reality of what the tearaway rebel within us all knows to be ever present. The Caravaggio image of David grasping the artist’s severed head perfectly conveys the attitude and symbolism of the expression.
We are gratified with early critical support for the design.
The Motograph - A Confederate Motor Company Editorial 