Nathan’s Harley-Davidson Bagger: The Ultimate Candy Apple Red

Nathan Bilz, proprietor of Livin Loco Garage in Burleigh Heads, is surely to be ranked among the top half-dozen painters of motorcycles in Australia. He specialises in custom painting, air-brushing, pinstriping and insurance work. Check out the winning custom motorcycles at the Summernats and the odds are more than one or two were painted by Nathan (who says with a laugh that many people refer to him as ‘Nafen’ – ‘I probably should change the spelling of my name,’ he says).

Nathan found his way into business almost by chance. As a long-time enthusiast with a strong preference for Harleys, he soon realised that he couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do the job to the standard he demanded, so he started painting his own bikes. Before long, friends started to ask him whether he could do something similar for them and almost before he knew it, Nathan found himself in the motorcycle painting business.

Capacious bags combine function and gorgeous form!

This almost unbelievable Harley-Davidson leaping off the screen at you as you read this yarn is one of the first so-called Baggers in Australia. Nathan had long dreamed of owning one. Named for the big carry-bags on the sides, this is a style very popular in the US. Another style he likes – and he has turned his 1989 Soft-Tail Spinger into one – is Vicla, a trend of customisation especially favoured in Mexico, he says. But it started – like so many cool trends – in California in the Beach Boys years.

Look at the depth of the paint. The job took Nathan about 200 hours of painstaking work with much sanding down in the process.

Frankly, it is difficult to imagine a more elaborate custom paint job than the one leaping off the screen at you now. Most bikes, says Nathan, are just three components: you paint the tank, the front guard and the rear guard. The starting price for a custom job in single colour candy is around $3K. Not in this case!

Have you ever seen a more beautiful Harley-Davidson?

This painstakingly applied livery took Nathan at least 200 hours. ‘A paint job like this,’ he says, ‘is a multi-layer effort from the base colours and silvers all the way up to the transparent Candy.’ He likens candy paint to cordial: ‘the more you put in the darker it gets’.

The first time I heard of Candy Apple Red was when Ford Australia offered it on the XT Falcon GT in 1968.

John Baillon’s 1958 Candy Bird, which started life as a 1955 Thunderbird.
Image: Kustomrama

But the process was developed by customiser John Bailon whose idea was to create a paint colour to match a tail light. It took Bailon about 20 years to perfect the process and he later applied it to other colours. His 1955 Thunderbird Candy Bird, believed to be the second car to be treated to this famous livery, is highly celebrated. He did this custom car in 1958.

Just the right amount of bling.

Shane of Cruzn Trimming handcrafted the gorgeous red upholstery on Nathan’s Harley. ‘Since that job he’s re-done every seat on all my bikes.’

Nathan Bilz is totally in love with this motorcycle, which so perfectly expresses his ethos and passion. He says the sound is a big part of it: ‘you’ll hear me before you see me,’ he says with a laugh.

He acquired a black Harley Street Glide with about 2000km on the odometer in 2016. In the early years the bike went from shop to shop and there were some less than satisfactory experiences. Finally, he says, the exercise ‘escalated’ to the point where he was able to get the bike registered.

Matt and Jack from Whiskey Throttle Collective took upwards of 80 hours to re-assemble the bike.

It is difficult to credit how much imagination (and talent) Nathan has built into this unique motorcycle!

But Nathan has had less luck when he tried similar paint jobs on sports bikes. Would-be buyers always seem to be believe that the machine has been crashed and repainted to hide the evidence.

The Harley was always going to be Nathan’s interpretation of a Bagger but his plan kept getting grander. ‘I started out with a 23-inch front rim but a friend said “let’s go crazy with this” and it now has a 26-incher. To get the huge wheel to fit, he had to get the front forks completely raked. Nathan sourced a complete new head set from the US. He chose a Daymaker headlight.

This is a massive motorcycle.

This is a huge machine. “I look like a kid riding in a car,’ he jokes. And Nathan is only interested in riding at a moderate pace. He has a great sound system and loves putting his wallet, phone and any other gear he’s carrying into those huge panniers. ‘It’s a great feeling, riding free!’

Every detail perfect, like the Pacemaker headlight.

The Harley has air suspension front and rear, necessary because Nathan prefers to admire it hugging the curvature of the earth. Press a button and the Harley raises itself by some four inches and is no longer too low to ride – it’s kinda Harley-Davidson meets Citroën Diesse!

Nathan loves his Harleys. Many would-be motorcyclists coming into their late thirties or early forties nurture a midlife crisis dream along the lines not of wanting a motorcycle’ but wanting a Harley.

1941 Harley-Davidson 45ci WLA motorcycle
Image: Bonhams

For many observers this passion for one brand of American motorcycle can be difficult to grasp but you don’t have to dig too deep to understand the aura that surrounds Harley-Davidson. In the early years of US involvement in World War II, dating from the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the Jeep had yet to be invented. But Harley-Davidson was ready as a supplier of ‘mechanised cavalry’ to the military.

Describing the Harley-Davidson US Military Model U for The Art of the Motorcycle (catalogue of the Guggenheim Las Vegas show of the same name), David Sarafan writes:

During World War II, Harley-Davidson produced more than 88,000 military-issue motorcycles, distributing them to various branches of the armed forces. One postwar benefit of Harley-Davidson’s massive participation in the war effort was that thousands of returning servicemen who had learned to ride a Harley-Davidson while in the service now formed an expanded pool of potential civilian customers for the motorcycle company.

When the boom in recreational motorcycling arrived in the 1960s, the old brand tugged harder at more American heart strings than any other maker of two-wheeled machines and arguably, little has changed in subsequent generations. Own a Harley-Davidson and you own a big slice of American Pie.

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