Even if you’re not a bike fanatic you’ll know about Harley Davidson, have seen a Ducati or Triumph and maybe even have heard of Laverda, but are you aware that Sbay Motor Company make fantastic two-wheeled machines right on our very doorstep?
There are owners clubs on this coast for everything from Ferraris and Mustangs to Harleys and Minis, but pretty soon someone should think about creating a chapter of Sbay owners.
Why? Because these beautiful works of engineering are not only magnificent examples of hand-built, custom-made super sports bikes, but if that’s not enough of a reason you could also add the salient detail that these powerful machines are not made in Japan, Germany or even Barcelona, but right down the road in Los Barrios.
You know, just past Sotogrande and the Gibraltar turn-off, in the direction of Algeciras. It seems an honour to have a company of this kind in our midst, after all, the Costa del Sol is not exactly an industrial powerhouse, but Sergio Bayarri, who founded the brand in 2009, proves what can be achieved with a great deal of vision, ambition and guts.
Though his background is in managing companies rather than designing racing machines, motor sport has always played an important role in Bayarri’s life and ultimately led him to pursue this very daring and personal quest.
A Flying Start
Those who thought the company’s beginnings would be slow and anonymous, with SBay destined to remain a brand with strictly local impact, would be proved very wrong, for the moment the first model, the radical-looking Sbay Flying, hit the road it scooped awards, praise and no end of admiring looks from professionals and fans alike.
In 2010 the Sbay Motor Company even managed to do the unthinkable and win the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building in the Production Category in the first year of participating…
Words Michel Cruz/ Photography courtesy of SBay Motor Company