Mellow Motorcycles' Triumph Phantom Blaze
Triumph, along with so many other motorcycle manufacturers with their wits about them, is all about the customization. As an example of what’s possible, they rolled out “Phantom Blaze” along with their updated models at Intermot a couple weeks ago. At first, I thought it was a new model. Yes, that’s what the world needs! A supercharged Thruxton!
In fact, the Blaze is the creation of Flo Hubert, proprietor of Mellow Motors, located near Cologne in the little burg of Obersulm. When Triumph asked if Mellow would be interested in building a custom to compete in the Sultans of Sprint dragracing series in Europe (Mellow won last year’s championship with a Ducati), Hubert took a look at the rules and decided the big liquid-cooled 1200 Thruxton twin would be the way to go.
A Rotrex C15-60 supercharger, designed for engines displacing between one and two liters, boosted the Twin from 96 to 142 horsepower, says Hubert, and the rest is history. At this year’s Sultans of Sprint in September, former Moto2 rider Arne Tode rode Phantom Blaze to victory again in the factory class. You could still smell the victory when Flo was sitting on the bike at the Koln show.
In addition to the supercharger and other engine tuning that accompanied it (forged pistons, etc.), the bike has an extended swingarm, is lowered a bit, for that classic dragracing stance, and wears an aluminum fairing handmade by Mellow – to be available for sale soon according to its website. Wait! This just in: The kit is now for sale, and it’s 6,990 Euros. Ouch!
Anyway, it’s a beautiful little motorcycle in its baby blue and yellow paint (the 59 refers to the launch of the first Bonneville, in 1959). We’re suckers for any motorcycle with forced induction.
Well, even if you can’t afford anything in the Mellow catalog, they’ve built a lot of interesting looking customs from the usual donors, including Honda, BMW, Kawasaki and this Suzuki TL. Worth a look if you like looking, and appreciate old-world German engineering with a modern retro twist.
More by John Burns
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Speaking of forced induction, where's the Recursion? I had such high hopes for that bike...
They do amazing work and one of the few to make cafe racers' underseat triangle look just right. Buggered if I know what they do for electrics.