™
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NOW IN OU
26 EA t R h
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T H E L E A D I N G B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E F O R T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L C U S T O M M O T O R C Y C L E A N D PA RT S I N D U S T RY
AMD World Championship Set for Record Bike
Entries and Visitor Attendance in October?
ith 17 weeks to go
(at press time) until
entries close for the
AMD
World
Championship of Custom Bike
Building (Cologne, Germany,
October 3-7), the response to
what will be the 13th ‘AMD’ has
been universally positive. Entries
are running way ahead at this
stage in the planning cycle
compared to prior years – either
in Europe or in the USA – with
over 80 bikes slated to compete
already.
There is always ‘churn’, but the field is
comfortably some 20 or 30 bikes ahead
of the kind of pre-entry levels that
would normally be expected at this
stage and normally yields an eventual
showing of some 70 to 75 or so bikes.
The primary reason appears to be the
ongoing change and decline being
seen in several of Europe’s historically
strong custom shows and the
increasingly widespread acceptance
that INTERMOT ‘Customized’, where
the AMD World Championship will be
staged again (Hall 10 at
INTERMOT/Cologne Exhibition Center,
October), is now firmly established as
the primary international custom
W
motorcycle industry Expo in the world.
This year sees the Hall 10 footprint
expanded as INTERMOT ‘Customized’
expands to occupy the whole of the
lower level of what is the largest hall at
the Cologne Expo Center, the only one
of the original double-deck halls left,
resulting in a satisfyingly retro and chic
environment that works well for the
custom motorcycle industry’s
exhibition values.
Hall 10 is located adjacent to the three
primary public entrances to the
the world’s
largest custom
industry expo
Cologne Expo Center and in 2016
attracted some 150,000 visitors - this
year the public days are expanded to
five from four days.
With more than five prior World
Champions already confirmed among
the 2018 competitor community and
bikes already slated to compete from
some 26 countries worldwide, the Hall
10 attendance looks set to be another
RMO
T
TE
N
all-time record for a custom bike show
at an international motorcycle industry
expo.
In the interests of promoting
craftsmanship and innovation, the
AMD World Championship only
features five classes, the most famous
of which is the now almost universal
Freestyle class concept first introduced
to the motorcycle industry by AMD in
2004 - this is the class from which the
competitors choose who will represent
them as World Champion for the next
24 months. The other classes recognize
the impacts that custom builders’
platform and design and engineering
decisions have on custom outcomes to
include the prestigious, immensely
popular and highly influential Retro
Mod class; Modified Harley-Davidson;
Street Performance for cutting-edge
high-performance engine and chassis
work and a platform-diverse Cafe
Racer showcase.
Most of Europe’s major V-twin industry
parts and accessory distributors are
already confirmed – Motorcycle
Storehouse, Custom Chrome Europe
and Zodiac International among them
– with several of the major OEs again
taking additional booths to showcase
their customization programs.
BIKES WE
HAVE LOVED
Larry Moore's 'Kontrolled Kaos' was fourth in the AMD World Championship Freestyle class in
2016. In October this year there will be three more great American built customs and their
builders making the trip to Germany to 'Wave The Flag' at 'AMD XIII'
JUNE 2018
ISSUE #227
“TO BUILD
THE BEST,
START
WITH THE
BEST”
IPS “BREAKTHROUGH
PERFORMANCE
PACKAGE” FOR THE
THUNDER STROKE 111
MOTORCYCLE
BRAKE LINES