White House K10 - a story of regeneration

[Ninemeister_imp]

Where to start?


Whilst I've been a car nut from the time I began to walk, up to 10 years ago I only really had a passing interest in motorcycles whilst helping out friends with their classics. This all changed after I bought a Vespa LX50 scooter for my daughter on her 16th birthday, us jointly restoring it so she could use it for her commute to college.

That tripped the switch, so before long I had restored a Vespa 125GT for myself, passed my bike test and bought my first bike, a Honda GL1100. In hindsight that was a big mistake as the 17,000 mile '82 failed its MOT test shortly after with a rotten frame - and hence became my first (and continuing) restoration project.

With an impending summer road trip to Spain, as a stop-gap I acquired a 6,000 mile Honda VTX1300S. With added Corbin Beetle boxes, a Mustang seat, and custom made a rack, that bike ran faultlessly for 3,000 miles and was the perfect choice for me with only 6 months riding experience.

Roll on 9 years and I'm sharing my dry day commutes between a Vespa 300 and a Bonneville Black 900SE and I make the decision to sell on the VTX. A quick clean, little set up for iPhone photos in the driveway and just 3 weeks later the VTX is off down the road on its way to its new owner.

And so it became how I had a lump of cash sat in my motorcycle fund on the day I first learned about the White House K10...
So, there I was one night at the end of August, family watching TV whilst I played around on Pinterest studying BMW Cafe Racers looking at design ideas for a BMW R80 Cafe Racer project which I now finally had the funds to complete. Then, for no real reason, this photo popped up on my search: