As the song says, "If you can't be with the one you love, then love the one you're with." It's this line of thinking that led Alex Gladicov to turn his Victory V92C into the stripped-down Hellcat-esque machine you see here.
After picking up his Victory for a good price, Alex ran around on it for awhile, but he yearned for something lighter with the no-B.S. look of a street fighter. He also pined for a Confederate Hellcat, but instead of going out and buying one, he showed some loyalty to the Vic (and saved time and money) by taking it to Schwartzkopf Exclusive Customs (SEC) in Marina del Rey, California, and having the crew there do the deed.
For those of you unfamiliar with the V92C, it was the predecessor to the Vegas motorcycle family but not nearly as successful (in fact, it's the insane cousin the company would like to keep locked in the attic). It did, however, have the solid Freedom motor going for it. Meaning, there was a good platform to work with for customizers, so when Alex brought his baby to Eric Schwartzkopf, it was largely a matter of cosmetic changes rather than upgrading the mill and driveline.
A big part of the reason Alex sought out SEC was that the shop is one of the very few-if not the only-builders in SoCal that work on Confederates regularly, so getting Eric to do the job was a wise decision. SEC was also able to give him what he wanted on a limited budget.
How? By focusing on important changes that really mattered rather than re-imagining the whole bike from the frame up. Since Alex was happy with the motor and driveline, he saved a bundle by keeping them. The only change in this department was the addition of a SuperTrapp exhaust.
A big part of the process was addition by subtraction: All the fat was trimmed off to make way for the new look. The front fender was trimmed, the gas tank got dished, and the weighty rear fender was tossed in favor of a Fat Katz blank chopped and modified to hook up to the bike's monoshock. The SEC crew also slashed off excess at the controls by switching over to slimmer bars and losing the mirrors in favor of a Wild One at the primary-side grip.
Confederates come in all kinds of colors as long as you want black, and that's what Alex had done to his Victory-but with a slight difference. Some of the original parts were blue, such as the swingarm pivot, foot controls, and hand levers. Rather than do the whole thing in darkness, he kept the blue as a modest offset.
Once the paint dried, SEC capped Alex's bike with a Le Pera solo seat and sent him on his way. It took us a long time to pin down Alex's bike for an article, partially because he's that busy, but also because life moves fast when you love what you ride, and sometimes that makes it hard to slow down for anybody.