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A large TV-sized box appeared on my doorstep. Inside was the seat unit complete with "cat-eye" rearlight, LED-bar brakelights, molded-in brackets and a seat base.

The seat unit overall looked well finished, though there were some slight imperfections visible where some air got trapped during the application of the carbon fibre inside the mold. But it must be said that John hasn't made it easy on himself... the way the area around the rear lights is shaped is just awesome and pure madness at the same time. I've never seen such complex shapes in carbon/polyester bodywork.

Ofcourse the first thing I did was go in the garage for a test fit. At the time of production John "Triky" Betts still had the original subframe on his slabside GSX-R750 so he was able to mold some brackets in that fitted perfectly. That saved me a lot of headache and removed the need to drill the seat unit. Ofcourse you can allways add your own brackets in using a DIY polyester kit but I much rather leave it to a pro to be assured it'll stay on.

John designed the GP3 (as it's officially called) seatunit to match a standard early GSX-R750 subframe which only needs to be cut off at the right length. Because I had allready modified my subframe in an earlier stage of development (radically shortened and the lower rails angled more upward) the seatunit didn't match the lines of the bike anymore. I marked the seat unit with some old pinstripe tape and cut it down using a Dremel. My body was itching all over from the small carbon fibre dust particles but the seat unit looked much sleeker after that.

Then I aligned the seat unit and drilled the front mounting brackets and the subframe so it was fixated. I kept a gap of about 10mm between the rear of the tank and the front of the seat unit so I'm able to remove the fueltank without unbolting the seat unit. To me it's very important to be able to remove the tank in a few seconds and have full access to the electronics and carbs underneath.

Oh... and another neat "design feature"... though the seat unit looks very long the rear tyre still sticks out a few mm's from out of the seat unit so I can easily back into a wall without damaging anything ;-)
Checked that using a large/heavy nut tied to a piece of string.

Because I didn't have the bracket that holds the seat lock anymore John had just molded a piece of aluminum strip in and it was my task to make some kind of support. I made a V-shaped bracket from 20x5mm steel strip which I bent using a gas burner and a hammer. At one time I tried to gamble which side of the strip was still hoHOhoHo... AAAARRRGHH! Hmmm... wrong side a guess and a large blister on my thumb :-/

Last thing you want to do is stick a large number plate on the end of such a lovely sleek and pointy seat unit. My cutting down of the unit and bracket had provided a perfect (though maybe not perfectly legal) place for my number plate. Not visible from the side, but to a police car that's riding 100 metres behind it is perfectly visible and hard to notice it's placed in front of the rear axle. I'm pretty pleased with the result. I made some small aluminum brackets to hold the number plate at the bottom and at the top it's tie-rapped to the seat support.

Next step was to fabricate some mesh to fit inside the vent holes. I cut mine with the dremel out of an old paper bin/trashcan. Painted them matt black and fixed them to the inside of the unit using silicone kit.

Final step was to cut the seatpad base into shape (another itch-attack) and take it to a local craftsman who covered it in a piece of his finest cow skin. After I got it back a few weeks later I glued it to the base using some special polyurethane glue. That'll never come off again I can assure you!

Below are the pictures of the finished seat unit. I can tell you it looks way better in 3D than it looks on a 2-dimensional photograph.

My overall verdict of the seat unit: You can really see how much love and John dedication puts into his work. Allthough some Ducati 916 influences are visible the design is truely unique, and the fact it's designed to fit a slabside 750 make it perfect for someone who wants to improve the looks of his bike without the need for serious modifications and welding to the subframe. Also the service John provides is unique, allowing room for any kind of personal wish.