alp concept design triumph thunderbird bonneville racer

Trent Reker

13 years ago

got a really cool email from alp sungurtekin yesterday. he was at bonneville last week racing his 1952 650cc pre-unit triumph thunderbird which he completed only 11 days ago, just in time to get to haul *** to the salt flats and race his machine, called “kursed.” as alp tells it, the machine is named for “all the s**t that kept happening while i was building it.”

kursed at 2011 bonneville land speed record trials

the frame is stock and alp moved the foot pegs to the rear a bit. it has an original (reconditioned by alp) triumph pre-war girder front end. it was raced with no fairing and has 100% steel oil and gas tanks.

kursed in progress in alp’s los angeles shop

alp’s girlfriend, jalika, sewed the seat pad by hand using genuine leather. alp tig welded the lightweight stainless pipes, fabbed the fender and much more. as with all of alp’s bikes, there is a lot of detail in the build but we’ll let the pictures do the talking from here.

jalika’s seat pad

alp is very proud of jalika. everybody dug her stuff, including a seat she recently made from elk leather, and she has already had an order for another saddle. congratulations, miss.