Prometheus Design Co was my brainchild that became reality in 2012. But it was in the making since I was a little boy. Back when I was 12 I always dreamt of taking a donor motorcycle and Customizing it. I remember spending time thinking and designing what I would do to that donor motorcycle. This didn't become a reality for another 15 years, till 2011.
The First Motorcycle I ever Customized was a Harley Davidson Forty-Eight. It was my version of Winston Yeh's Rough Craft Guerilla. I called it Maria. I became known for this motorcycle. I used RSD wheels, grips, pegs, levers, gas cap cover, brake rotors. Performance machine switches and calipers. Rough crafts rocker covers, headlight grill, seat, exhaust, air cleaner, derby cover and point cover. Coker beck tread 16x5.00 tires, joker machine turn signals, triple tree bolt, speedometer relocation and fork tube plugs. Crime scene chopper tail light with burly brand slammer suspension that lowered the whole motorcycle. Custom gas tank and rear fender came from my friend Steven at Shaw speed amongst other things.
I won the best custom motorcycle award for it. GQ magazine and many newspapers wrote articles about my motorcycle and that's how it started.
After building Maria I started Prometheus Design Co. I designed motorcycles for some of the leading Custom bike builders around the world. Later I started selling aftermarket parts and became an authorised dealer for some of the biggest companies in the world. I owned Prometheus Design co for approximately 5-6 years. I built many bespoke motorcycles in these years.
The first motorcycle I built under the name of Prometheus Design was Theia. This was the first commercial project I built. It was one of my least favourite as I am not a huge fan of choppers. The client was big on having a raked front end and I guess we had to follow the client's demand.
We built Priscilla after that which was a tribute to the Airforce. Rivets all over the motorcycle and a teeth paint job on the gas tank. We were the first to build a motorcycle with this paint job and then there were many replicas built around the world.
The pinup girl artwork on the side cover became quite popular. People think the rivets are sprayed on and are a part of the paint job but that's not true. The rivets are very much real and you can ask Charlie Stockwell what a pain it was putting them on. The client wanted to keep the motorcycle comfortable and capable of having a rear seat. So we didn't do much fabrication or chopping on this build. Drag handlebar, progressive suspension and Whitewall tires added to the beauty. I would have loved to paint the rims red but it didn't fit the clients budget at that time.
We later built a lot of motorcycles for the local Harley Dealerships and started a new venture by the name of Carbon Customs. We built another motorcycle with rivets and gave it an army styled paint job which we called Urscella. This motorcycle was built for the Surat's Diamond City Dealership. We installed our custom rocker covers and a fully hand-built custom exhaust amongst other things on this motorcycle. The Surat Dealership then went on to change the seat and handlebars which wasn't a part of my design. We chopped the rear fender and installed some 16x500 tires on the motorcycle along with some burly brand slammer suspension.
We then went on to build a cafe racer by the name of Baubo for the Ahmedabad's Nine Bridges Dealership. We installed all the parts we manufactured and put it on display at the dealership. This included our Custom Exhaust, Billet parts like the rocker cover, air cleaner, derby cover, belt to chain conversion, custom seat, rear Cowell and a custom gas tank. The paint job was done by Nine Bridges in-house as they didn't want to spend money on a proper paint job.
We also built a motorcycle for Nine Bridges HD Ahmedabad for their dealer championship at IBW & IHR. It was a custom scrambler out of an Iron 883 that we called Themis. We put some knobby tires, a fully custom exhaust, along with a custom air cleaner, belt to chain conversion, Ohlins suspension, custom rear fender and lots of Roland Sands Design parts. This Bike won the championship for us.
Win at IBW & IHR came a little later and under the dealership umbrella. But it was still one of my favourite days. I would love to replicate this motorcycle for myself without the budget restraints that the dealership gave me.
We worked very closely with RSD, Winston Yeh at Rough Crafts, Steven C Willis at Shaw Speed and Customs, Charlie Stockwell at Warr's Harley Davidson and many other established motorcycle builders.
We took up many other projects including tuning a BMW 3 series diesel, lifting a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, American theme paint job for 110 year anniversary of Harley Davidson amongst many other projects.
I finally sold the company in 2016-17. It felt like selling a part of my soul. But I have miles to go before I sleep and this was just the first milestone.
