Fifteen years of custom motorcycle building, a little inspiration from Singer, and a challenge from BMW Motorrad have come together in Ellaspede's latest creation. Introducing Voyager One.

For more than 15 years, the team at Brisbane-based Ellaspede have been designing and building one-off custom motorcycles for clients across Australia and around the world. Each project has been an opportunity to explore new ideas, solve problems and bring someone else's vision to life. It's a process the team has always found immensely rewarding, but after hundreds of individual builds, a question began to emerge: what would happen if they took everything they'd learnt and channelled it into a motorcycle that was entirely their own?

Not one-off showpiece, but something that captured the Ellaspede design philosophy in its purest form. A motorcycle that combined their signature styling, traditional craftsmanship and modern manufacturing techniques with something equally important: the ability to get out there and actually ride it.

The result is Voyager One.

THE IDEA: ONE BIKE, EVERY ROAD

Rather than starting with a motorcycle, the Ellaspede team started with a rider.

Picture someone who works 9am to f5pm, Monday to Friday. Their motorcycle is their daily transport, weaving through traffic and getting them to work. Come Friday morning, there's a two-day pack strapped to the back.

When the clock hits 5pm, they're not heading home. They're blasting down the highway to meet a few mates at a service station on the edge of town. Tanks are filled, the city disappears in the mirrors and the weekend begins.

The route is a mixture of bitumen, gravel roads and dusty fire trails. Friday night is spent camping under the stars, swapping tall tales over a fire and eating something that's probably a little more burnt than intended. Saturday brings more kilometres, a few wrong turns and eventually a country pub, where a decent meal, a cold beer and a hot shower feel like absolute luxury.

Sunday starts slowly. Breakfast, a coffee and the long way home. By late afternoon, the gear is unpacked, the dust is washed off the bike and everything is ready for Monday morning.

That was the brief.

The team wanted to create the elusive do-everything motorcycle. Something equally comfortable commuting through the city, carving through mountain roads or exploring a gravel track that disappears over the horizon.

A bike that didn't need to be precious. One that looked just as good covered in dust as it did parked outside a café.

A CALL FROM BMW

As luck would have it, while the team were developing this concept, BMW Motorrad approached Ellaspede with an interesting proposition.

What would Ellaspede's interpretation of a GS-inspired BMW R 12 nineT look like?

The timing couldn't have been better. The brief from BMW aligned almost perfectly with the motorcycle the team had already been imagining.

With the R 12 nineT providing the mechanical foundation, the team began gathering inspiration and putting pencil to paper.

One vehicle in particular kept coming up: the Singer All-Terrain Competition Study (ACS), unveiled in 2021.

For anyone unfamiliar with the ACS, imagine taking the timeless silhouette of a Porsche 911 and reengineering it into a formidable off-road machine. It was a fascinating combination of classic design, purposeful engineering and a willingness to go well beyond the confines of the road.

For Ellaspede, it represented exactly the spirit they wanted to capture.

The ACS wasn't simply a road car dressed up to look adventurous. Its design was driven by what it was intended to do. Every surface, component and detail had a purpose, yet the finished vehicle was unmistakably a Singer.

The team wanted Voyager One to achieve something similar. A motorcycle that looked distinctly Ellaspede, but whose design was informed by the realities of everyday riding and weekend exploration.

HANDMADE MEETS HIGH-TECH

With the design direction established, the team got to work.

The early stages involved plenty of sketches and Photoshop renderings, but it quickly became apparent that this project would demand considerably more digital development than a typical one-off custom.

There were complex surfaces to resolve, components that needed to fit together with precision, and the added challenge of ensuring that the finished design could be reproduced consistently across multiple motorcycles.

So out came the 3D scanner and there was a lot of scanning.

The BMW was digitally captured, providing the foundation for an extensive CAD development process. From there, the team worked through countless iterations of designing components, 3D printing prototypes, test-fitting them to the motorcycle and refining the results.

It wasn't simply a matter of making everything look right. Each component needed to be assessed for fitment, function, serviceability and, where required, structural performance.

The aim was to combine the freedom of traditional custom motorcycle building with the accuracy and repeatability of modern manufacturing.

Perhaps nowhere is that philosophy better illustrated than in Voyager One's fuel tank.

The tank is one of the motorcycle's defining visual features, and from the beginning the team knew it had to be something special.

But there was another important consideration. Rather than reinventing the entire fuel system, Ellaspede wanted to retain BMW's original fuel pump and fuel cap.

It was a deliberate decision driven by serviceability and practicality. After all, a motorcycle intended to cover serious kilometres should be straightforward to maintain.

To achieve this, the team designed a series of precision CNC-machined housings that integrate the factory components into the new tank. The machined fuel cap surround was deliberately left as a prominent design feature, celebrating the engineering rather than hiding it.

The tank body itself was initially formed by hand, with aluminium panels worked over an English wheel until the desired contours were achieved. Each section was then TIG welded together to create the finished shape.

It's a process that combines old-school metalworking skills with contemporary precision machining.

But building one beautiful tank is one thing. Building 50 that share the same dimensional accuracy is another.

Following the completion of the first tank, Ellaspede 3D scanned the finished form and converted it into CAD data. From there, the team began developing their own press tooling to produce repeatable tank panels while retaining the character of a handmade component.

It's an approach that sits somewhere between traditional coach building and low-volume manufacturing.

And that's exactly where Ellaspede wants to be.

THE DETAILS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

Look beyond the tank and Voyager One reveals just how extensively the R 12 nineT has been reworked.

Up front, a new headlight shroud incorporates a CNC-machined inlay, while a handmade front fender adds to the bike's purposeful stance. The handlebars, upper and lower triple clamps, fork bottoms and foot controls have all been blacked out to create a cohesive finish.

The factory airbox has also received attention, with CNC-machined covers and modifications intended to improve airflow and make maintenance easier.

A custom seat flows into a precision-machined rear cowl, with CNC-machined grab bars and a laser-cut luggage mounting plate reinforcing the motorcycle's dual role as an everyday machine and weekend escape vehicle.

Lighting has been carefully integrated throughout. A backlit Ellaspede running light adds a distinctive signature, complemented by Motogadget indicators, Daytona mirrors and Koso rear lighting components.

A fender eliminator cleans up the tail, while the blacked-out exhaust system ties the design together.

Depending on how the owner intends to use the motorcycle, Voyager One can be specified with Metzeler Karoo 4 dual-sport tyres, or a more road-focused alternative.

There's also an upgraded lithium-ion battery, Progrip grips and a collection of smaller details that reward a closer look.

Underneath it all remains the BMW R 12 nineT H/L, complete with its factory technology and rider conveniences.

That includes Gearshift Assistant Pro, cruise control, heated grips, Hill Start Control, tyre pressure monitoring, ConnectedRide Control, Headlight Pro and a digital instrument display.

The intention was never to strip away the things that make a modern BMW enjoyable to own. Instead, Ellaspede wanted to build on that foundation, introducing their own design language without sacrificing the motorcycle's everyday usability.

NOT MASS PRODUCED. INDIVIDUALLY COMMISSIONED.

Although Voyager One represents a move towards a more repeatable product for Ellaspede, don't expect to see hundreds of identical motorcycles rolling out of the Brisbane workshop.

The initial production run is limited to just 50 individually numbered examples.

And rather than offering a conventional online configurator, Ellaspede has chosen to retain something that's always been central to their custom-building process: a personal relationship with the customer.

Every Voyager One begins with a consultation.

Owners are invited to discuss how they intend to use the motorcycle, what inspires them and how they'd like their individual machine to look.

Colours, materials, finishes and smaller design details can all be tailored to create something personal. The underlying design remains consistent, but no two motorcycles need to look exactly alike.

Once a customer commissions their Voyager One, they're allocated an individual build number.

Before the motorcycle itself is completed, Ellaspede sends the owner a laser-engraved stainless steel build plate carrying that number. It's a small but significant detail, and the first physical piece of their new motorcycle.

From there, the process begins in earnest.

A BMW R 12 nineT H/L with digital dash is ordered through BMW Motorrad and allocated to the build. While the factory motorcycle is on its way, Ellaspede begins manufacturing the components required for that particular customer's specification.

Parts are machined, fabricated and prepared before being sent for their individual finishes, whether that's paint, powder coating, ceramic coating or another treatment chosen during the consultation.

Once everything is ready, the BMW and Ellaspede components come together in the workshop, to form their unique Voyager One.

The motorcycle is assembled, fitted, checked and tested before the owner is contacted to arrange collection or delivery.

It's a process that aims to preserve the personal experience of commissioning a one-off custom motorcycle, while benefiting from the consistency of a carefully developed production design. The completed motorcycle retains BMW's factory warranty, alongside Ellaspede's own manufacturer's warranty for its components and workmanship.

BUILT FOR THE EVERYDAY. DESIGNED FOR THE ESCAPE.

For Ellaspede, Voyager One represents something of a milestone.

After more than 15 years of building motorcycles around client’s wishes whilst balancing their design intent, the team has had the opportunity to distil its own collective experience into a design made for low volume manufacturing.

It's a motorcycle that brings together traditional craftsmanship, contemporary manufacturing and a clear sense of purpose. One that celebrates the character of a custom build without forgetting the practical realities of owning and riding a motorcycle.

And while the initial production run is limited to just 50 examples, with several allocations already secured ahead of the official release, the ambition behind Voyager One goes beyond exclusivity.

The goal was to create something that genuinely delivers the Ellaspede experience, from the first conversation with the customer to the thousands of kilometres that follow. Because ultimately, Voyager One isn't intended to spend its life sitting under a cover in someone's garage, you know ridden not hidden.

It's meant to be loaded up on a Friday morning, ridden to work, pointed towards the horizon when the weekend begins and brought home on Sunday covered in dust and stories.

One motorcycle. Fifty individual builds. And a whole lot of roads waiting to be explored.

For more information or to enquire about commissioning one of the initial 50 Voyager One motorcycles, visit www.ellaspedebmw.com