In the last three to four years, Mooneyes' Hot Rod & Custom Show in Yokohama, Japan has become much less four-wheeled-oriented than it started out as back in 1992. Nowadays, within the walls of the city's ginormous Pacifico (where the show now requires three times the square footage it used to), you'll find yourself immersed in so much motorcycle mayhem, you'd wonder why it wasn't called the Mooneyes Custom Motorcycle Show. That is, if you're so inclined to find yourself in that region of Asia the first week of December.
Even though the city's once-predominant bike show, Cool Breakers, is held just a month prior at the same location, it looks like Mooneyes has capitalized on the Japanese custom motorcycle scene with its HRCS. The 2006 show featured over 500 bike entries, with standouts from the likes of Bull Originals with their rose-inspired VL; Ace Motorcycle's "shrunken" Pan; Hide Motorcycle Company's board track-styled ironhead; and Japan Drag's super-clean knuckle.
As with every year past, Moon invites special guests from the US and abroad: this year, Indian Larry Legacy's Paul Cox and Keino were the headliners, with Utah bronze sculptor extraordinaire Jeff Decker (Hippodrome Studios) and Chopperville Custom Cycles' Scott Craig bringing up second and third billings. The lineup was spiced up even more with the addition of Gabe "The Heathen Traveler" Griffin and Iowa's Bill Mize with their shovel and panhead choppers, respectively. All in all, it was a better showing than anything the Yanks have attempted to pull off in the recent past.
For information on last year's show or for the upcoming 16th Annual Yokohama Hot Rod & Custom show, visit www.mooneyes.co.jp (the site features an English text version for your viewing pleasure).