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Classified Moto's Walking Dead Custom Motorcycle - New Photos
“You’ll always be surprised at what can happen,” said John Ryland, the founder of Classified Moto about owning a motorcycle shop.
When actor Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead contacted Classified Moto wanting them to build him a bike of his own, Ryland and his team were star struck, but they never could have imagined the greater opportunity that would soon fall into their lap.
After Reedus and Ryland got to know each other during the build of the actor’s Yamaha XV920R, Reedus texted Ryland out of the blue.
“He said he had something I was going to love,” Ryland remembered.
AMC wanted Classified to build the bike Reedus’s character, Daryl Dixon, would ride in the next season of The Walking Dead, but there was a catch—they needed two identical bikes.
“I knew right away when they said they needed two bikes, it was going to be tricky,” Ryland said.
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With only six weeks to prepare the post zombie apocalypse motorcycles, compared to the twelve months Classified usually needs to finish a bike, Ryland went with the platform he and his team is the most familiar with—a 1992 Honda CB750 Nighthawk.
“Anything can happen on set...” Ryland explained.
Design
John Sanders, the prop master for The Walking Dead, worked directly with the Classified team on the requirements of the post-apocalyptic Nighthawks.
“They had really good input,” Ryland said.
Not only did the bikes have to be identical down to every last battle scar, but they also had to be quiet and reliable. Some readers who saw the video introduced last week (and posted above), asked why the way the bike sounds the way it does, and now we have an answer: it had to be quiet on the set. This meant modifying the exhaust and tuning the sound with a set of baffles. Even after the Nighthawk’s stock pipes were cut and capped with Classified’s signature nickel plated mesh, the machine still has an impressive snarl.
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To make Daryl’s bike more dependable on set, Ryland and his team kicked around the idea of using a new bike with fuel injection, but with little time to prepare, Classified chose to stick with what they know best: a rebuilt, carbureted 750 with a custom billet-aluminum air box.
