Streetfighter

Wikipedia

A streetfighter is a superbike that is customized by removing the fairing, and making other changes that result in an overall more aggressive look. Beyond simply removing fairings, specific changes that exemplify the streetfighter look are a pair of large, round headlights, tall, upright handlebars such as those on a motocross bike, and short, loud, lightweight mufflers. Completely custom-built one-off frames, originally intended to overcome the weakness of the tubular steel frames of the early 4-cylinder super-bikes of the 70s and 80s, also characterize the streetfighter trend. Many of these frames turned out to be "beautifully crafted pieces of metallurgical art," perhaps only unintentionally.

It is also possible that the streetfighter came about simply because young stunters of the 80s in the UK couldnt afford to replace their damaged fairings after repeated crashes, so they took them off. Later, more appropriate headlights were added, then high handlebars to aid in wheelies and other stunts.Inman1>

Made popular by European riders, this type of custom motorcycle is gaining popularity all over the world, and motorcycle manufacturers began responding in the late 1990s by producing factory streetfighters, beginning with the 1998 Triumph Speed Triple and the 1999 Honda X11, to the up through the 2009 Ducati Streetfighter.

History

Though it has its styling roots in the Café racer culture of the 1950s and 1960s, the streetfighter is very much inspired by the new Japanese bikes of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first sighting of the streetfighter design template was seen in Bike magazine in 1983 when the editor commissioned Andy Sparrow to draw a comic strip to replace Ogri. It was entitled Bloodrunners and featured dispatch riders, delivering blood and live human organs for transplant operations. They rode enormous Japanese inline fours with turbos, with no extraneous parts. Fairings, mirrors, pillion seats & rear footpegs etc w read more at » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetfighter