MOTO 12.5: A Miniature Urban Brawler
Max and Erica Droog, the husband/wife team behind Droog Moto, are known for building a signature line of post-apocalyptic streetfighters, scramblers, and desert sleds. Earlier this year, we featured their Ninja 650 urban brawler, MOTO 12, which sold to a customer with a young son. Now we’re thrilled to feature the next chapter in the story, MOTO 12.5 — a Honda Z50R “mini brawler” built for the owner’s son!
The concept was to echo the Ninja 650 build as much as possible. Droog Moto opted for a Honda Z50R as the donor bike. The Z50R was a lighter-weight iteration of the beloved Honda Z50 monkey bike, more track-oriented than previous models. Debuting in 1979, this “sportier” evolution of the popular minibike had BMX handlebars, a new tank and seat, and the 50cc four-stroke engine from Honda’s Z series of monkey bikes.
Droog Moto has succeeded in transforming this Z50 into a miniature version of their Ninja 650 brawler — part scrambler, part streetfighter, all beast — a 50cc “mini brawler” built for the ultimate father/son moto experience! Below, we get the story on the build.
Custom Honda Z50 Brawler: In the Builder’s Words
We will start with MOTO 12.5 🙂
We recently sold our MOTO 12 to a super rad customer who was all about the Droog Moto look. After taking possession of MOTO 12 he reached back out to us and wanted to have a mini bike built for his son! We’ve never considered a Honda Z50r as a donor bike but we found one close to us and quickly got to work!
We wanted it to mimic MOTO 12 as much as possible. We designed and built a tracker plate to match along with the handmade aluminum wheel inserts. The Mini Brawler was given our signature tank treatment and we built a custom seat to flow with the lines. The rear shocks were swapped out with ones that could handle untamed terrain and the front forks were also gone through as well.
New handlebars were put in place along with new cables and lines. The bike needed to be gone through top to bottom as it had been sitting for a long time. All the electronics were replaced and we made sure this bike was ready to wreak havoc on the neighborhood. The Mini Brawler was by far one of our most fun builds and we are so glad the these two get to ride these brawlers together!
M & E
Droog Moto
www.droogmoto.com
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