Headed up by Winston Yeh, Rough Crafts is a renowned Taipei-based customs shop known for combining vintage and contemporary visual themes and delivering them in blacked-out packages loaded with bespoke carbon fiber elements. And Rough Crafts’ latest work maintains this MO, this time applying its signature aesthetic to BMW’s behemoth new R18 cruiser, resulting in what Winston has christened the “Berlin Barnstormer.”
Starting with a 2020 specimen, Winston has completely torn down the donor, before building the bike back up with bespoke carbon fenders fore and aft, custom side covers, carbon radiator covers, and a new tank cover inspired by the coffin-style cells on BMW’s 1920s era R32 — the model that inspired the R18. The Barnstormer has also been treated to RC-branded top-shelf BERINGER braking hardware, modified Roland Sands Design cylinder head covers with bespoke RC shop badges, LED lighting from KOSO and Motogadget, a custom bobber-style seat set on a custom carbon seat pan with a CNC-machined billet bracket, a Rough Crafts headlight, Arlen Ness Y-spoke wheels wrapped in Metzeler tires, a WalzWerk suspension lowering kit on the front and back, and a custom fishtail-inspired exhaust system. With the popularity of the R18 and the demand for aftermarket components, Winston has also opted to turn several of the custom elements on the build into purchasable bolt-on parts such as the project’s seat, seat pan and bracket, carbon fenders and support brackets, carbon radiator shrouds, and the triangular blacked-out exhaust system.
While Rough Crafts already has a slew of impressive projects under its belt — a body of work made all the more impressive considering the wide variety of donor types the shop utilizes — this latest one-off two-wheeler further demonstrates its ability to churn out stellar, original designs, regardless of the genre or build type, making us that much more excited to see what rolls out of the Taiwanese shop next.
