Rat Bikes are a very peculiar genre of motorcycles, no doubt about that, and it is precisely for this reason that the standards of ‘beauty’ through which they should be judged are just ‘different’.
Of course there are those who despise the whole kind writing it off as ‘wrecks’, ‘pieces of junk’ and so on, but there are also many admirers of this genre, who know how to appreciate its features and that raw ‘post-nuclear war’ vibe that is so typical of certain sci-fi films such as’ Blade Runner’, ‘Terminator’, ‘Escape from New York’ and the likes.
We also know that the negligence and carelessness of some motorcyclists turns into Rat Bikes even certain machines that really should not be, but this is certainly not the case of the bike that we are going to ntroduce today, whose ’scruffy’ looks are actually conscious choice of the owner: it’s called ‘Swamp Rat’ and is a ‘Rat’ reinterpretation ‘Rat’ of an old Honda VFR (from the mid-90s, we would say).
Photographed in front of the famous Ace Cafe in London, this ‘Swamp Rat’ shows a rough ‘rust and welds’ look that immediatly qualifies it as a proper Rat Bike: rims, instrumentation, levers, handlebars, basically there is nothing on this bike that would give any sense of modernity.
Its designed is also ‘enhanced’ (in lack of a better word …) by a pretty rough saddle, a tail rudely cut off and its name proudly flaunted on the ’side plates’.