The Cafe Racer sub-culture is born from an aesthetic and identity that borrows from the American Greaser and the Rockabilly era, the British Rocker and of late a new version of aficionado that has come to appreciate the quality and mechanical style born from these custom bikes.
Originally the Cafe Racer was a stripped down predominantly English or hybrid English bike that had been modified to remove extraneous elements to create a performance bike that was almost minimal and utterly stripped of the superfluous. The resulting bikes were of themselves clean, mean and almost streamlined in outlook.
Their mechanics, and outer refashioning began to resemble moving engineered statues.
As the scene evolved the modifications became more personal and blended the aesthetic and functional like never before. Sub-cultures within the sub-culture began to emerge as the movement and appreciation for these deeply individual machines began to appear.
At McCabe we are proud to work with several cafe racers, custom modifiers and bike owners. Each of them either works with or appreciates the deep seated understanding and dedication needed across varying disciplines to produce these superb machines.
The Belfast Automatic in particular is our tribute to the Cafe Racers of past and present and with the new Cafe Racer series – a new timepiece has been born through a precise level of engineering and design to create altogether something new, compelling to echo this most industrial and mobile of artistic disciplines.