The official name of the Honda VLX 400 Steed is NV 400. We might say that it’s almost the same like its brother the VT 600 Shadow except the smaller piston displacement and the lower output.

The 400 Steed bikes were put on the Japanese market but we can find them in Europe and in the U.S.A. too. We have chosen this series to build a Bobber and mostly the Japanese bikers build „brutal” custom bikes from the 400 Steed series.

The purpose about a real Bobber are the simple shape but brutal design with simple and unique painting. After the VT 600 Double Freedom old school chopper, which one was our previous job, this Bobber was a different task and the purpose was: Carrying out another kinda „feeling”. First we needed to get and manufacture some unique parts. Afterwards we took off the engine block but we didn’t need a couple of parts of it. Removing the surplus parts and cleaning the remaining.

The back ribbed Bobber fender was made from special fiberglass material. In this case we chose the mat black powder coating for the fork bridges, special handle bar, operator parts, drive chain guard cover, radiator cover, wheels and the air-filter box instead the chroming.

Those parts, which ones wouldn’t have been able to endure the sintering, have gotten mat black painting. The fenders and the tank have gotten different color; mat brown but it’s really good for a Bobber. The seat is also our Team’s job; simple, curved, saddle-shaped and it got 2 cm thick hard sponge, which one was covered by crocodile pattern material.

The nice decoration on the tank is a beige star with Steed Bob title. We put the same title on the holder of number plate too and it also has another interesting supplementary part; vintage back lights what was mounted on a Hungarian Csepel 250 motorcycle about 60 years ago. Furthermore the accordion shaped rubber on the front fork. The exhaust pipe is also a very important part of Bobber which was made from steel and was covered by thick bandage. The glass of mat black front lights is yellow.

The small, mat black turn signals was painted by a special glass paint. We tried to do the Bobber style for the 400 Steed to the best of our knowledge and we hope it has come off...

Painting job: ifj. Károly Csépán (Répa Design). Metalwork: István Sándor. Exhaust pipe: Proex.hu Style & Design plus set up: Ákos Angyal.

We hope, everybody will like it!

Greetings: Á.A.