Honda CBX Special | WILD FILE

It's a crazy mix, for sure. But stare at this wild Japanese/European hybrid for a minute and tell us it isn't one of the slickest meldings of modern and classic you've ever seen.

Conceived and built by Omaha, Nebraska, resident and classic-bike collector Dan Uhing in his garage over a several-year period, this Honda CBX-based special boasts some serious custom work, much of it surrounding a large cache of Ducati 916 parts, including wheels, swingarm and rear suspension assemblies, subframe, tail-section and exhaust canisters.

"I own a bunch of CBXs and wanted to build a special," Uhing told me. "I looked at all the European CBX specials and hated the flip-up tail most of them had. So I got an idea and started buying Ducati parts, which resulted, a long while later, in what you see here."

The frame, tank, instruments and (obviously) wide-body six-cylinder engine all come directly from a ratty CBX that Uhing bought for peanuts, but you wouldn't know it from the bike's high degree of fabrication and finish work. It's a stunner from any angle.

"I only have about $5000 in it, including the donor bike," Uhing says, "though I've got many hundreds of hours of labor in the project. I made so many of the little pieces, and tried to use as many CBX parts as I could, even if I had to modify them. I cut the stock exhaust into about 10 pieces to make it fit cleanly into the 916 mufflers, but it all worked."

Can't argue with that.