Powerplant Choppers’ Harley-Davidson Panhead Racer
Riding your Harley-Davidson into unknown territory is thrilling. Handing your bike over to a shop and letting them do what they want to it is an adventure as well. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. It’s best to hedge your bets by using a shop you know though.
That’s what happened with this 1952 Panhead that Powerplant Choppers created for Hawaii Five-O’s Scott Caan. Scott has known Powerplant owner Yaniv Evan since high school and the Los Angeles, California, shop built a bike for Scott previous to this one. Yaniv’s creations are handmade and use genuine classic parts. He puts function slightly ahead of form; above all, it has to be fun to ride. Powerplant isn’t concerned with chromed iron. It’s all paint and polish with these guys, with as much done in-house as possible. That’s why Scott gave Yaniv free rein to indulge himself on this one. Scott liked the first enough that he had no problem giving the guys at Powerplant creative carte blanche on the sequel.
Powerplant didn’t disappoint him. It spent a year creating a ’52 Panhead based on a 1920s/’30s racer it had sitting around the shop. The reason it took so long? All the hand crafting. Any parts he can make in-house, Yaniv does. The reason being, he grew up around old hot rods and he comes from the school of old-world craftsmanship. His bikes feature a good deal of brass, be it with the pegs or on other accents throughout the machine.