1984 le mans mark III gets an aggressive, green rebuild from kaffeemaschine

the KM23 is another head-turning cafe racer from axel budde, founder of kaffeemaschine. until this bike, axel operated entirely on his own, but thanks to many successes he has gained two new employees, a proper work space and a business partner. this bike, built from a 1984 le mans mark III, is the first fruit of kaffeemaschine’s recent growth.

all images courtesy of axel budde of kaffeemaschine

axel and his new staff chose a vintage lamborghini green for the KM23 — a vibrant, granny smith apple green, ‘which almost seems to glow in the dark,’ according to axel. the original inspiration requested by the client was a bike that used the color scheme of the le mans winning porsche 917 of 1970. quickly axel saw challenges ahead and worked around them. ‘it would be hard, designing a pretty motorcycle, which resembles the porsche. I already had started the build of a fairing for him, which he wanted anyway. so my idea was forgetting the great idea of the 917 theme and creating a bike with an aggressive colour and technical parts.’

the monochromatic grey, silver and black frame is difficult to fully appreciate with the greyscale background, but rest assured, a lot is going on within this aggressive little cafe racer. electronic ignition and keyless-start-system are just a few of the specs. ‘[the] exhaust is a stainless KM system. all alloy parts were made also by us… all surfaces of the parts were treated, every screw was reduced on the mill and pearl blasted, all alloy parts grinded and galvanized!’

axel is candid about his KM23 project — falling in love with the look, performance and sound, but feeling disappointed about how the final photos turned out. ‘it’s definitely one of the bikes, which is more disappointing on the pics as it is live. maybe because of the grey technical parts in front of the grey background…though it’s hard to let it go, I’m very happy to know she will lead a happy life, as the owner is a true gearhead and bike fanatic.’