There I was at the V-Twin Expo in Cincinnati in February wandering the isles, when I came across the LePera booth. Bob LePera built his first custom motorcycle seat in 1961 and the company has grown ever since, but it’s now taken over by the kids, Christine and Bob.
I knew Bob for 30 years, and his kids Christine and Bob Jr. grew up in the business. They continue their family business and keep Bob’s dream alive. Bob passed into the big custom shop in the sky in 2008. Most of the LePera lines of seats are still ground, cut, and laid out by hand. All of their powder-coated seat pans are made from 16-guage steel, and everything is made in America.
Bob Jr. has been designing seats since the early ’90s, and this year developed a line of racing stripe seats.
“I dig the stripes,” Bob said. “I remember the cars as a kid, the stripped jackets.”
“I was a fan of muscle cars and their spoilers,” Bob said. “I developed the Stubs Spoiler seats for Sportsters, and racing stripes were a natural. I remember the muscle cars of the ‘60s. I was a fan of the style that had spoilers and racing stripes.”
“I sketched out a seat with 1-inch stripes, and it worked,” Bob said. “We didn’t focus on Café seats but our Daytona seats fit, and we modified them slightly and had a pure Café seat. Racing stripes work perfectly and the response has been terrific.”
All of their seats are filled with Marathon foam. It’s tried and true, poured and formulated for maximum comfort, not too firm and not too soft—just right. They also offer gel inserts for the long road riders. “It cuts down on vibration and fatigue. It’s firmer than the Marathon foam,” said Bob.
You can have any seat made with various vinyl fabrics, leathers, embossed leathers, sport fabrics, exotic embossed leather and my favorite, metal flake. Or you can have your stripes made in any number of the materials above or these colors: Black cherry, Pink Ice, Lemon Peel, Navy Blue, Chocolate, Emerald Green, Purple Iris, Deep lilac, Charcoal, or medium titanium.
The Racing Stripe seat line includes seats for Sportsters, from the Daytona line, to their café styled Stubs Spoiler seats and the Stubbs Cafe. They make them in the Stubs Spoiler line for Dynas, and the Dyna Sport Smooth. Plus they have stripped models in the Daytona for Softails, and of course touring model seats in the Outcast GT line and Daytona.
