The Sliver Cafe Racer is a homegrown modification based on the Hero Karizma and takes a completely radical approach towards Hero’s flagship bike.
The Karizma has been one of the most appreciated and well-sold products from Hero that managed to make a brand name out of nothing. While the Indian automaker has always been conservative about its flagship offering (not considering the current facelift), there were folks who saw further potential in the bike with respect to its design capabilities. Aditya and his team from Mean Green Designs (MGC) managed to do just that as they have created ‘Sliver’ – a Karizma based cafe racer.
The MGC team wanted to do something radical opting to have a clean design with a vintage touch in a single package. The cafe racer gets a minimalistic approach with the exposed engine and components. The aesthetics have been beautifully played with. The bike gets a custom headlight and a curvy fuel tank with sharp edges as well as a dark brown quilted leather single seat. The design is further accentuated by the custom built old school girder fork suspension set-up, while the rear has been upgraded with a monoshock. The rear swingarm has also been redesigned to match the overall look of the front girder fork.
The smaller touches are the most noteworthy here with the leather wrapped handlebar grips and footpegs as well as bar-end mirrors for the authentic cafe racer feel. MGC has cleverly integrated the turn indicators on the bar-end mirrors and footpegs that add to the clean visual appeal. The fuel tank also gets the brown leather stripe that cuts across the silver paint job on the cafe racer. Completing the clean design approach is the exhaust muffler finished in matte black with a silver machine finished tip.
Coming to the powertrain, the MGC Sliver comes with the stock 223cc single-cylinder, SOHC, air-cooled engine from the Hero Karizma with a compression ratio of 9:1 and features a Kehlin CV carburettor with a CCVI switch. The top speed is rated at 130 km/hr and the 0-100 km/hr sprint is achievable in 13.8 seconds. Certainly one of the most radical yet well-executed designs on the Karizma, the Sliver cafe racer boasts off a fresh appeal that will make a lot of heads turn around. If you plan to get a similar design theme for your bike, Mean Green Designs will be charging you a good Rs. 2.5-3 lakhs, while the company’s other modification jobs start from Rs. 1.5 lakh onwards.
