Special brew YOUR BIKES, YOUR WAY
Brian McGregor’s heavily yet tastefully reworked 1975 H2C is a riot of hi-energy and super sounds. One to remember
Brian McGregor could have gone down the nut-and-bolt, back-to-original route with his Kawasaki H2 build, having bought the bike as a complete but scruffy project. Fresh in from Illinois, USA this 1975 H2C was still wearing its stock pipes, ape hanger ’bars, airbox and side reflectors – and even came with its original US logbook. Complete, untouched H2s are getting rare, even across the pond. So, despite its outwardly shabby appearance, and poor mechanical condition, this Kwak was ripe for back to stock restoration.
Fortunately – and much to the annoyance of purists everywhere – Brian had different ideas. “I remember these bikes from back in the day. My mate’s brother had them. While they were quick and exciting to ride, the brakes were pathetic – you could barely stop. I didn’t want to put effort into building something that might not pull up in time…”
Building a modernised classic creates its own issues, however. Hybrids and updated oldies live or die by their attitude. Get the relationship between front and rear stance wrong, the exhaust system’s dimensions out of proportion, or the wheel/tyre sizes at odds with the rest of a bike’s form, and no amount of trick componentry or creative engineering will redress the balance.
Brian’s Kawasaki throws up no such issues. What he’s built is one of the most striking, perfectly proportioned H2 specials still terrorizing the public highway.
“It’s actually a second attempt of sorts,” says Brian of the project. “I’d already built an H1 with modern running gear, so everything I learned from that went into getting this right.” He certainly got something right because this H2 causes a stir wherever it goes, whether that be drooling admirers offering to take it off his hands (cue big cash offers, but it’s not for sale) or bean-counters telling him he’s ruined a classic (yeah, right…).
Reassuringly it’s far more of the former, as Brian discovered when he rode this H2 to a bike meet back in the summer, just for a trek out. Before he’d even parked up, his Kwak had bagged one of the meeting’s most prestigious prizes.
“I only went there to check out the old stuff,” he recalls. “I stopped at the gate to ask the guy where all the classics were parked and he says, ‘over there, but be quick – you’ve already won best classic.’ It wasn’t an empty win either because I was up against some strong entries.”
In building this 750, Brian hasn’t only addressed the stock bike’s p
