What is 'brat style', and who invented this custom bike look?

Brat style is the name for a stripped, low slung custom bike with a flat or slab seat, built on the stock swingarm frame rather than a stretched or chopped one. It is not a generic design trend that grew on its own. It traces to one workshop, Brat Style, founded by Go Takamine in Kita, Tokyo, in 1998. Any modified Royal Enfield, Harley or Triumph you have seen with a bench seat, fat tyres and a dropped stance owes something to that shop.

What "brat style" actually means

A brat style bike keeps the stock frame and swingarm, unlike a chopper, which gets a new or stretched frame. The stance drops through the suspension, not the frame. The seat is a flat bench, long enough for two, or a thin solo pad. Handlebars sit flat and mid mounted. Tyres are fat and often vintage looking, Firestone Deluxe Champion treads being a favourite. Engines are blacked out, exhausts heat wrapped rather than chromed, and anything not load bearing or needed to ride gets removed. This definition comes from Cafe Racer Central's history of the genre.

Go Takamine's narrow, low look from Tokyo traffic

Takamine opened his Brat Style shop in Kita, Tokyo, in 1998. RideApart's profile of him describes a builder with a consistent personal and professional aesthetic, once called the Japanese Steve McQueen by the custom scene, building bikes that stay rideable and fun rather than becoming showpieces. Brat Style's own blog says the shop is heading into its 30th year, which places the founding in the late 1990s. Takamine later opened Brat Style USA in Long Beach, California, in 2014, and Cafe Racer Central's history says he has since built machines for Yamaha and BMW.

How "brat" became a generic word

Bike EXIF's own brat style tag page shows how far the name has travelled from Takamine's shop. It lists bikes built on a BMW R80, a Moto Guzzi V50, a Honda CB350 and a Honda CG125, from builders in Argentina, China and Taiwan, none of them Takamine's own workshop. RideApart puts this plainly: brat style became the generic word for the look, the way Kleenex or Xerox became generic words for their categories, and the article notes that Takamine's own name can get lost in the process even as his design keeps spreading.

Brat style riding on Royal Enfields in India

India has its own brat scene now. Bengaluru's Bulleteer Customs runs a line it calls Brats, built on Royal Enfields, with tyres from 140 to 180mm, slab or bench seats in vintage tan or black, shortened fenders and blacked out finishes, according to the shop's own site. Bulleteer is also the shop Royal Enfield picked to build the Hooligan, an Interceptor 650 commissioned for the 650 twins' India launch, which shows how far a factory will go to borrow this look for its own marketing. If you are getting a similar build done at home, remember that a changed tyre size, seat or stance that is not reflected on your bike's RC can still cause trouble at an RTO check, so keep the paperwork for any such work.

Sources

• Brat Style, blog
• Brat Style Motorcycle, tag archive, Bike EXIF
• We Hang With the Custom Builder Who Invented "Brat Style", RideApart
• Brat Style Motorcycles: "Be first, be cool", Cafe Racer Central
• Brats, Bulleteer Customs