Handmade Tale: Building an RD 200 custom from scratch

In the mid 70s, the Yamaha RD 200 delivered more fun than a small capacity motorcycle had any right to. A compact two-stroke, it could cruise easily on the highway and, given a long enough straight, creep past 80 mph (130 kph). The heyday of little two-strokes is long over—in the road going sense, at least. But memories take longer to fade, and Portuguese builders Pedro and Filipe Costa have dug deep into their past to create this stunning custom RD 200. “A taste for motorcycles since childhood led us to build this machine from scratch,” says Pedro. “I'm the...