Harley-Davidson Road King Custom turns rust into fashion

There was nothing wrong with this 2005 Harley-Davidson Road King Custom before California-based Chris from Fox Custom Paint and Ric Greene from Southeast Custom Cycles began working at it and now it looks like everything’s wrong with the American bagger. That is because our guys decided to get the bike rid of its shiny paint and chrome only to create the distress look that they think fits this H-D model very well.

Indeed, after noticing how much attention rat rods were getting at custom shows, the Californian boys uncovered the clean metal underneath Harley’s impeccable paintjob only to then start applying their own sky blue paintjob (actually several layers of basecoats and different color primers), which also had to be partially sanded off.

But it is the finishing touch that gives the bike its rusty look. A spray bottle of different color base was used to squirt paint on the thing and obtain the rust-like spots that are actually eye-catching.

This is definitely something we don’t see every day, although we could start living with this. While most custom builders aim towards Harley’s quality finishing, these guys have just tipped the scale in the complete opposite direction.