For the folks who custom build for a living, BMW’s boxer layout is their holy grail. Nothing else looks as retro and authentic as the two pods pouting out of the frame. Builders turned these spirited machines into a beacon of beauty, simplicity, class, and definition.

A French design house called Dab Designs have had their go on the BMW R NineT, but it isn’t a built like the one you think. There is no cutting, no welding, none of that dirty, oily stuff, but just a bolt-on pre-fabricated kit that can do the customized work for you in just under a couple of hours. It’s called the ER kit.

Success was not a problem with BMW, especially for their R NineT->ke5240. It has absolutely been a hit story for the German ever since it launched the R Nine T in 2013. It was so good that BMW struggled initially to keep up with the demand and they released one version after the other in succession to the world stage that includes the Pure (roadster), Racer (café/endurance-style), Scrambler as well as the R nineT GS Adventure model.

For all those owners of the R nineT models, Dab Designs brought in the ER custom kit, an acronym for Enhanced Racer, to drastically change the character of the motorcycle without having to change the soul or the bone structure of the machine. The kit needs no change on the original chassis in order to maintain its reliability, performance and safety.

Having easy access to design and fabrication tools, a workplace, and specialized equipment is not a luxury that every motorcycle owner could have. Only people with the passion and a little extra bills and the time could commission a custom builder to work on their machine to be able to call it their own. For the rest of us, a few builders and motorcycle firms like Bunker Custom Cycles and Dab Designs here came up with the concept of offering an out-of-the-box solution to retrofit pre-made parts and accessories onto the stock bike.

The ER body panels are fabricated in a way where they can be literally swapped in place of the original factory panels without having to worry about different mounting points on the frame. All one will need is an Allen key and a socket wrench to bolt them onto the original mounting points without requiring any chassis or subframe modification. How cool is that?

Each of these panels went through a stringent procedure for precision since they weren’t a one-off. The designs were sketched, churned into wooden blocks to shape the panels, 3d scanned and fabricated meticulously. One can choose from three different versions of body panels varying from fiberglass available in BMW colors with other colors on request and carbon-fiber with a clear varnish available in gloss or matte varnish. There is also an ER Flax kit which uses natural flax fiber similar to linen made available in gloss or matte.

The ER kit will make the naked streetfighters convert into the 80’s Café Racer graced with precision made panels that include the fork head, fork-head support, mud-guard / Fork cover, back cover, radiator scoops, rear side covers along with a few other bits and bobs. The kit also includes lenticular fire lens and the LED bar lights that will require a little knowledge of motorcycle wiring.

Yamaha also has recently come up with their solution on the bolt on kits. Introduced by Yamaha’s own accessory department, Y’s Gear, these custom kits are sold under the name ‘Authentic.’ They include bolt-on body panels and other accessories meant to give the bikes a retro take with the liveries of the yesteryears. Available to the MT-09, SCR950 and the SR400 naked monsters, the kits range from $820 to $1,100 and are region specific.