USA – motorcycle – 650cc
What is it? It’s a beautiful and ingenious café racer expertly crafted by a rocket scientist in California! Actually Casey Stevenson is a visionary in many regards. Firstly he recognized the wonderful Suzuki engine for what it was -- namely a single cylinder, twin combustion chambered, air cooled, 4-stroke engine with a single 40mm Mikuni carb belting out ladles of mid range torque for the kind of riding that gives hardened bikers a shit-eating grin. It is the only engine of its exact type and displacement in any current day street-legal production motorcycle and probably the simplest engine setup anytime, anywhere (equal in engineering brilliance to my favorite thumpers, the Honda 99cc engine used in the current CRF and the Suzuki 250cc used in the current TU250). Good find #1. Secondly, the full cradle frame this engine normally resides in is the simplest frame geometry and the most adaptable for customizing. Because many modern production bikes use the engine as a stressed component then full cradle frames are rare, and custom flattracker frames can cost a small fortune so this is good find #2. Belt drive is good find #3 – sweet, clean, quiet power delivery that is very kind to the engine it stems from and promotes all round mechanical longevity. Then with some artistically styled components Casey has found the perfect balance of function and cool. With all these good finds “chance” suddenly becomes a non sequitur as it is displaced by genius -- and the CS-1 is the butterfly to the S40 caterpillar as it metamorphoses a non-descript little cruiser into a seriously sexy ride dripping with thump and style. Though we must tip our hats to Suzuki for assembling so many wonderful parts in a single perambulator, it is the necromancer Mr Stevenson who gets final praise for sighting the potential secreted therein. I shall watch from the sidelines with bated breath to see what this man’ll conjure up next!
