BMX Bikes / M / Madison / 1979 Madison Taipan

1979 Madison Taipan

My custom build of the Aussie DB Large Pro!

The rare '79 looptail Madison Taipan, off the same Koizumi factory line as the identical (in every way, bar the gusset hole) Diamondback Large Pro frame of the same year but even harder to find.

Light and beautifully made, as one would expect from Koizumi, I can count on one hand the number of these Koizumi Taipan frames that I know exist. A documented history of the early Taipan frames is limited, but both the 1979 'VM' serial Taipans (mooted to have come out of the Kuwahara factory, using Tange tubing, as with the early 'VM' DB Large Pro) and the succeeding 1979 'baseball' Koizumi Taipans (noticeably better welds + a few other minor differences), appear to have been commissioned as simply a gusset variant to the Diamondback Pro on the same production lines. The history and development of these, Japanese manufactured, looptail Madison Taipan frames appears inextricably linked to that of the early DB Pros.

Restoration of all the parts and the design and fabrication of the decalset and padset was done by me personally (I love the hands-on stuff!). The frame was beautifully refinished in Super Yellow gloss powder coat by Roberto's Custom Powder. It's easy to see that the early DB aesthetic was my inspiration for the build design, the custom decals and padset. I've nicknamed the build Bumblebee as a tribute to the world-famous-in-New-Zealand yellow and black HMX-500 BMXs of the same era. I mean, when you find a Japanese built, American designed, Aussie frame, why not name it after a slice of Kiwi history? ;)

There's heaps more pics of the finished build, along with a detailed build blog with lots of design and parts restoration pics on my BMX blog here: http://www.lixbmx.com/madison-taipan