Madder Max
MADDER MAX
AMERICAN FLYERS
A subtly sinister take on Star's musclebike
THERE IS PERHAPS NO bike that flaunts its street credibility like
the muscular 2009 Star VMax. Long, low and mean, the Max doesn't hide the fact that it's hell bent on straight-line performance. Packing 174 horsepower
and 113 foot-pounds of
torque, the bike
speaks for itself. So what would you do if you were the first custom-
izer given the green light to put your per sonal spin on the reincarna tion of a cult classic? "We wanted to take the VMax and customize it in a way that would empha size its performance look, including adding bigger
tires and more of a black, dark and badass aura,” said renowned Yamaha/Star custom-bike builder Jeff Palhegyi.
Considerations had to be made that the bike was going to be shown at the annual Yamaha dealer meeting in Las Vegas alongside the stocker, so subtle enhancements were chosen over a completely radical departure.
First up, Palhegyi designed and milled contrast-cut, billet-aluminum bolt-on components. These parts-including the exhaustsilencer caps with twin turndown tips, engine case covers, cam covers, brake and clutch master-cylinder covers-were all prototype parts that are now available in the Star accessory catalog. “You look at the bike and
think to yourself, ‘What else can you really do to it?’ So the black-anodized accessories, which have been so popular in the cruiser world but not too popular in the sportbike world, were a good fit. After all, the VMax is kind of a cross-breed type of bike,” said Palhegyi.
Filling out the new custom rear fender (sans passenger accommodations) required lowering the rear suspension by 2 inches and replacing the stock wheel and 190mm tire. A fat 240/40-18 Metzeier ME880 Marathon meat is mounted on an 18 x 8.5-inch Performance Machine billet wheel, which, due to the VMax’s shaft drive, needed a custom hub fabricated in-house by Palhegyi. A matching front hoop measures 18 x 3.5 inches and
rides in a 2.5-inch-shorter fork (extensively modified internally) to maximize the slammed look he was after.
Continuing with the dropped theme, the stock seat was shaved down substantially and then reskinned by Howard McKee. Palhegyi wanted the paint to be dark and sinister but didn’t want cheap, flat, monochromatic surfaces. So the bike was sprayed with a combination of gloss blacks, metallic grays and then accentuated with subtle red pinstripes. He also blacked-out or removed many of the silver and chrome accent pieces.
The end result is a meaner, more muscular Max, one that conveys a street-smart attitude without screaming “Hey, look at me!” -Blake Conner
