“She was an accident waiting to happen. 600 pounds of American coke fired iron, riding on weather-checked English rubber. Cracking femurs or rupturing internal organs were her specialties, and she had done so on more than one occasion. The Iron Lung, a 1991 Harley Sportster roadracer, was a vision of what never was, in response to a question that was never asked.” – This is how Icon presents its new creation, the epic Iron Lung.

This new mechanical beast was born from Icon’s desire to create a truly special motorcycle that has the look of the legendary Harley-Davidson endurance and circuit racers from the 1970s, but is mixed with modern technologies and contemporary lines.

Like you’ve probably guessed, the Iron lung is based on a standard 1991 Harley Davidson Sportster. Luckily, Icon doesn’t play when it comes to modifying motorcycles, so they’ve started their work by boosting the engine’s power. Therefore, the Sportster’s 883cc unit was upgraded using a big bore kit up to no less than 1200cc. The increased capacity was combined with a Supertrapp exhaust system so the end result should be fairly impressive.

For enhanced performances, the Iron Lung’s front end had to receive some attention to. So, apart from the custom front fairing built in house, the guys from Icon have also decided to make the entire front lower and wider. They’ve also added a new sub frame, progressive 970 shocks, fresh forks (borrowed from a Harley Davidson Wide Glide) and custom triple clamps.

If you like those tasty wheels you should know that they come from a V-Rrod, while the custom seat was created by New Church Moto and the paint job is signed by the Garage 31 team.

All in one, the bike’s design and specs are fairly catchy and if you want to see it in action hit the jump for the official video released by Icon.

2014 Icon Iron Lung

Specifications
  • Make: Array
  • Model: 2014 Icon Iron Lung
  • [do not use] Vehicle Model: Array

Video: Icon Iron Lung

ICON 1000 Iron Lung - A Harley Davidson Sportster Custom from ICON 1000 on Vimeo.

Press release

Happy Holidays from ICON 1000. To help fight the winter chill, we’d debuting something hot and bothered for the season – an all new ICON 1000 custom.

ICON and ICON 1000 customs are intrinsic to our gear. The gear we design influences the bikes we build, and the bikes we build in turn influence the gear we will make. Every ICON bike is built by us in our home office of Portland, OR. The Iron Lung was no different.

She laid in the garage for multiple years waiting for a second breath. With the Spring apparel launch approaching in February 2014, it was finally time to resurrect this Sportster. The design brief was to replicate the bikes that Harley Davidson dared to build in the 1970s – world beating endurance and circuit racers. We have big plans for the ICON 1000 line of apparel so her bombastic approach would be deemed necessary.

The heart of the Iron Lung is a 1200 big bore kit that we used to transform the original 883 motor into something with a little bit more of a left hook. Supertrapp exhausts were grafted on so she may declare her independence through two smoking barrels.

Significant fabrication work went in to giving her the unique stance she currently flaunts. The front end features wide glide forks suspended by one-off billet triple clamps -exceedingly rare, devoid of worth, and loved by only the few and the awesome.

With the front end lowered and widened, a custom subframe was fabricated, and Progressive 970 shocks were added on the rear. The fairing was then halved by the hands of our resident King Solomon and then widened and reattached. The end result is an exceedingly wide, ridiculously low bike built for the smoothest, fastest road you can find.

Finishing touches include Fat Boy wheels replicating the blue tinge of vintage magnesium racing wheels, hand painted details by Garage 31, and custom seat by New Church Moto – resident Portland artisans we call on regularly.

Once completed, we headed down to an oval in Southern Oregon and kicked ‘er in the guts to be featured along side of our Spring 2014 ICON 1000 apparel collection – coming soon. Her handling was as questionable as the grandstand snacks, but she bore the brunt of torture with aplomb. It wouldn’t be an ICON 1000 bike without a true trial by fire. In Iron Lung’s case this was literal as she burst into flame after her initial shakedown run just a few weeks prior.

We build them, we thrash them, and then we build them again, all in pursuit of inspiring and being inspired by the apparel we build.

Full Build Sponsor List:

- Drag Specialties

- Wiseco

- SuperTrapp

- Driven

- PBI Sprockets

- Avon Tires

- K&N Filters

- Progressive Suspension

- New Church Moto Seats

- Loaded Gun Gustoms

- Garage 31

- Motul

- Accel

- Motion Pro

- Cometic