Joe Takai formed Mercury Customs in 2004 to develop high-end custom motorcycles and components. After spending the first part of his life as an engineer, mechanic, and visual effects and graphics professional, he wanted to go back to his automobile and motorcycle roots.
Although he spent years doing everything from developing a visual arts school in Maine to leading teams of visual artists in Hollywood blockbusters such as Titanic, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, he always wanted to get back into designing and building machines like the ones that inspired him as a young man growing up in Detroit. Joe began rebuilding and redesigning cars in his parents’ garage at an early age. His first project was working on a neighbor’s ‘68 Ford Mustang and sticking a high-performance V-8 under the hood, giving it nearly 400 hp. Later on, he bought motorcycles, redesigned or restored them, then resold them after riding them for a few months.
With his mechanical and automotive capabilities in his back pocket, Joe continued with other interests and challenges, and in 2004, when he came back to what he loved, he had additional knowledge and experience that helped him put a very different twist on custom bike building. All bike builders believe attention to detail is important-if not the most important part of building a bike. Joe is different and believes that details are custom bike building; his bike pictured here, “BlackLight,” showcases his developed eye for detail.
A potential customer approached Joe about building a bike that would fuse two of Mercury Customs‘ most popular bikes: Ronin and Hard Eight. It needed to have the sleek elegance of Hard Eight and the not-so-subtle toughness of Ronin, minus the samurai sword. With that objective in mind, Joe set to work using his proven customer service method. After the initial introduction and interview with the client, Joe made sure the customer knew exactly what he was getting into by drawing up conceptual drafts, which called out specific design details of the bike. The combination of a brushed-aluminum finish, complemented by flat-black and red coloring, offset the oversized theme on this mean, Pro-Street racer. Once they agreed on the design themes and accents, Joe put together a build sheet that detailed all the parts to be bought and fabricated, along with their associated costs. Then a deposit was collected, and orders were made with outside vendors. Finally, they began to fabricate everything else in-house.
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