Fantastic FANTIC!

Kev never forgot the sad, smashed-up Chopper in the scrapyard that he saw when he was 14 years old. Forty years later, he’s gone back in time.

Fantic Kev isn’t nicknamed Fantic Kev for nothing. Look at the faded period-perfect 1970s Polaroid shot of him – he’s seated on one of the legendary super ’peds of the day, a purple Super T Fantic GT 50cc, outside Digby Motors of South Harrow, North West London. At 16, he had already owned a red Fantic GT, and 40 years on, Fantics still figure in Kevin Powell’s life. “I’d first seen a Fantic Chopper when I was 14 back in 1974, in a scrapyard. It had been crashed, but I was struck by the odd shape of the motor and fuel tank, and I was amazed that there was even a 50cc chopper in existence! “I then owned other Fantics, but first bought a Chopper in December 2006. It was a UK 125cc model on eBay, and was in a state. It had been sat in a garage, and there was no record of its past, or numberplate. Bits were missing, it was rough and it had a rough ‘Easy Rider’-inspired sort of stars and stripes paint job. I saw the potential though, and bought it.” Having purchased the bike, Kevin then unexpectedly went through a very tough time in his personal life. He was living in and working on restoring a property during the day, and so he found that channelling his attention into restoring the Fantic in the cold winter evenings helped him through a tragic and difficult period. Incredibly, by July 2007, Kevin had completed the restoration and the Chopper ended up in the stunning condition you see in the photos here, proving that working on motorcycles can also undoubtedly be therapeutic.