Often, when a new model comes out and custom builders get their hands on it, the results can be spectacular. So, why have the custom builders made such a pig's ear out of the BMW R18?

Is the BMW R18 too good looking to be customised?

I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that but I am struggling to find a re-imagining of the BMW R18 that improves on the original. I know that improvement is not necessarily the point of the exercise but surely making something worse is also not necessarily the point.

OK, you might argue as to the definition of 'worse' and I know I am in a murky area here as we are talking about personal artistic expression but I have to admit that I'm distinctly unimpressed. Some of you will like what you are seeing so will wonder what I'm going on about but I'm going to press on regardless.

As soon as the BMW R18 came out, you just knew that custom builders the world over were going to get their knickers in a twist at the prospect of getting their hands on one to work their magic.

However, may I put forward the proposal that some bikes are too good already to be 'improved' by customising? I know that improvement isn't necessarily the purpose of customising but I feel that, sometimes, a design can't be improved on. Look at the Jaguar E-Type (or XK-E in America). Didn't see too many people rushing to re-work that, did you?

The thing is: the R18 was already a 'custom' bike, as much as a mass-produced bike can be 'custom'. The BMW parts catalogue includes many items that can change the appearance of the R18 to suit individual tastes.

But that hasn't stopped custom builders the world over from treating the R18 as a blank canvas. And I have to say, the results have been mixed.

First of all, I have to say that I respect enormously the skill and artistic vision of any custom builder: to be able to take something and turn it into something else is an incredible skill. Doesn't mean I have to like it, though!

One of the first custom jobs to appear was from long-time BMW collaborator Roland Sands who at least tried to turn the R18 into something different by making it a drag bike, complete with square section rear tyre.

Then came Bernhard Naumann and his take which appeared to draw inspiration from 1960s BMW 2000CS car, especially the slanted grille. Kingston customs then went back to Art Deco times with its radical, dustbin-faired build, incorporating the BMW kidney grille. Neither of those was particularly pretty. Striking, but not pretty.

Now, Shinya Kimura has built the Wal, or Whale and, to me at least, it's the least convincing of the lot. It seems to owe more to Mad Max that anything else and if you were to put a standard R18 and this next to each other, I know which one I would take.

The standard R18 is not perfect but, like Triumph with its Bonneville range of modern classics, BMW has chosen the right elements from its history to blend into a modern motorcycle and I just don't feel that it needs anything doing to it.

Of course, this is just my opinion and we'd love to hear yours. Let us know in the comments section what you think.