Genius at Work: Max Hazan Creates a Motorcycle Masterpiece

For motorcycle builder Max Hazan, the machine itself serves as muse. “I never begin from a perception of what is possible,” explains the founder of Los Angeles’s Hazan Motorworks. “I stand in front of the piece I’m working on, and it tells me what to do.”

The 35-year-old craftsman has practiced this approach since 2011, when he started tinkering with bikes in his father’s garage while recovering from a crash in an off-road motorcycle race. Hazan shows RobbReport.com how he creates a rolling work of art around a vintage engine. In this case, the canvas is the power plant of a 1949 BSA. It will become one of the 15 custom bikes he’s sold for prices reaching six figures.