Inspiration can come out of nowhere and drive people to do all sorts of things. For example, the inspiration for the bike you're looking at on these pages came from a Triumph chopper belonging to a cat known as Joe T. So Mr. Devil of Lucky Devil and Jim Sutherland knocked around some design ideas and came up with a Big Twin chassis with 40-degrees of rake and a 4-inch stretch that is very proportionately similar to the bike that inspired this build, and they went to town building it.
With the frame fresh out of the fixture, the crew from Lucky Devil went to work filling it up with an S&S 80 cubic inch shovelhead, a Rivera Primo six-speed transmission, and they connected the two with a BDL 3-inch open belt primary and clutch. Up front, they fit the bike with a DNA Springer and a set of Lucky Devil rockers, topping it off with a set of DNA risers and CCI handlebars. A set of 16-inch spoke wheels wrapped in Maxxis classic whitewall tires were bolted up, and the pile of parts began to look like a motorcycle.
That was about the time of the addition of the Cole Foster fuel tank, ribbed rear fender, and the DNA headlight. The Lucky Devil crew built some really cool drilled rear fender struts that tie into the style of the neck gusset. They also built an oil tank that they refer to as "The Bomb," which doubles as the battery box. They mounted a canister-style oil filter right behind the oil tank on the carb side of the bike, and then proceeded to plumb the oil system with copper hardlines. Above the oil tank, they added a Lucky Devil seat pan that was stretched with tooled leather by Joe Noack. Finally, the Lucky Devil crew bent up a set of custom pipes before they blew the roller apart for paint and chrome plating.
Mike Landburg from Lucky Devil Paint Works started by spraying the frame antique silver and dusted some black into the seams with an airbrush. Then the ribbed rear fender, fuel tank, oil tank, and headlight were all sprayed with DuPont Hot Hues Ice Pearl. Mitch came back in and added a green stripe up the center rib of the rear fender and the rib up the center of the fuel tank. After the two base colors cured, Joe Normal was called in to apply the Lucky Devil logo to the side of the tank, along with some pinstriping and the Lucky 13 to the side of the battery box section of the oil tank.
With all of the paintwork finished up, it was time to assemble the Lucky 13. And the crew from Lucky Devil did just that, using top-of-the-line parts like BDL hand controls, Excel foot controls, a Ford Model A taillight, a Lucky Devil license plate mount, and even covered the pipes with header wrap. Overall, the bike took just about 6 months to assemble and is just another really good example of how a little bit of inspiration can go a long way.