With more than a touch of Louisiana voodoo, Confederate Motor Company introduces its most ambitious and outrageous project yet—the Wraith.

Monster Garage has a lot to answer for. The Discovery Channel’s hit series, featuring the rambunctious Jesse James as chief designer, appeals to the maverick macho spirit that lurks just under the skin of many American men. As James’ fame spreads beyond the world of cable television, so too are customized cars and motorcycles elbowing their way to the front of every loudmouth crowd.

Girder-type front end with carbon composite blades and dual cone Timken bearings at all pivot points for excellent torsional rigidity and perfect front-to-rear weight bias. Carbon Kevlar single-sided swingarm. 3.75-gallon belly fuel cell. Total claimed weight (dry): 375 lbs.

There is nothing new about all this, although the current fashion mirrors a renegade spirit that owes more to Black Hawk Down or The Terminator than it does to The Wild One, the definitive bad-biker movie. The whole custom chopper concept can be traced to the bobbers of the postwar era, when Southern California was a wide-open paradise for young, free-spirited ex-GI bikers freshly sprung from the horrors of the Pacific theater. Our young heroes stripped WD Harleys and Indians of their clunky, military bodywork, mufflers, and mechanics and dickied up the tanks with a splash or two of color. Having reduced the bike’s weight by half, a young lad could then do a modest amount of tuning to the venerable V-twin engines and have a fine hoss on which to cruise the boulevards of the Pacific coast, making as much noise and fuss as possible as he went. Not much has changed.