Calendar News - March 2004

Another FastDates.com World Premier!
Confederate Motorcycle's "Wraith" Concept Bike

February 1st -A "Wraith" is the ghost of someone (or something) that has just, or will die, and in this case it is the modern sportbike reincarnation of a vintage 1920's board track racer from Confederate Motorcycles. Jim Gianatsis photographed Wraith with beautiful model Andrea Cobb for the 2005 Iron & Lace Calendar in January 2004. We were excited and privilageed to be the first to showcase Wraith on the FastDates.com in its world premier. And since February is host to Valentin's Day we just had to dress Andrea in some sexy red lingerie from Victoria's Secret.

The Wraith shown here is the origional concept bike built by Confederate Motorcycles, New Orleans, in the fall of 2003. In side view it resembles a classic 1920's board track racer, updated for the 21st century. The unique aluminum tube backbone frame supports a specially built Harley-Davidson XR750 unit construction Dirt Tracker engine with increased displacement and STD cases.

The rear single sided swingarm, wheels and brakes are borrowed directly from a Ducati 998 Superbike for ease of fabrication on the concept bike, but these components could change once the Wraith goes into production. The exotic cantilever front forks constructed from billet aluminum and carbon fibre are a production item from a European manufacturer.

Confederate plans to build 30 Wraith limited production bikes in 2005 with a selling price around $75,000 each. Almost a bargain price for such an exotic and technically advanced retro racer. You can see a lot more of the radical Confederate Wraith bike in our hot new Members Corner section The Iron & Lace Garage featuring high quality 10 x14 screen saver size pictorials of the world's finest custom bikes from top builders featured in the Iron & Lace calendar.

Gianatsis Design launches exciting, sexy new Advertising Campaign for Mikuni American featuring beautiful new calendar model Andra Cobb January 20, 2004: Mikuni American, manufacturer of the industry leading Mikuni HSR 42/45/48 Performance Carburetors for the American V-Twin market and sponsor of the Iron & Lace Calendar, is kicking off an exciting and sexy new advertsing campaign in 2004. The advertising campaign is being produced by Gianatsis Design Associates, Mikuni's contracted advertsing agency and publisher of the Iron & Lace Calendar. Mikun'si Vice President of marketing Lee Chapin explains the radical new advertising approach for the otherwise conservative Japanese fuel induction manufacturer which supplies many of the origional equipment carburetor and fuel injection systems and components found on vehicles from many of the world's top motorcycle and automobile manufacturers. < Click on ad for bigger picture

"Since the introduction of the HSR smoothbore carburetor line back in the 1980's, Mikuni has relied on a straight product shot of the carb with a lot of descriptive text to let the consumer about the exclusive performance features and advantages our HSR carburetors offers in the aftermarket compared to stock and our competitiors' products. Now, some 15 years later that original advertsing concept combined together with other marketing programs like our appearance at major consumer and dealer events, and our sponsorship of the Iron & Lace Calendar featuring many of America's top custom bike builders using Mikuni HSR carburetors, Mikuni has successfully established itself as the leading name and performance carburetor in the V-twin market worldwide.

"We felt it was time for a fresh new approach towards marketing the HSR carb, one that was completely new to the industry and hadn't been done before. Because of our name recognition in the motorcycle industry we felt an image ad featuring just a photograph with minimal text was the way to go. Together with our advertising agency Gianatsis Design we discussed numerous images concepts.

Jim Gianatsis mentioned one of his favotite new music CD's was Liz Phair which featured a picture of Liz on the CD cover, sitting on the floor behind her guitar in a very sexy pose. We then thought why not have a sexy model hold the HSR carburetor! But the carburetor would be too small when held by a model, and how would youru dress her? Which led us to the idea of having the HSR carb placed on a V-twin motor with the model placed behind the motor, hugging it, just like Liz was hugging her guitar on her CD. The motor would be large enough that the model could be nude behind it without anything being revealed, and with minimal or no copy in the ad it would really grab people's attention, make them stop to figure out what the ad was all about."

Brand Model and Talent Agency in Santa Fe Springs, CA, refered us to a new model named Andra Cobb. Andra was booked, sight unseen, and proved to be one of the most beautiful, and the nicest models Jim Gianatsis has ever worked with. The shoot came out incredible, Lee Chain was estatic, and the new 2004 Mikuni HSR ad campaign photos were in the can and wrapped in less than 2 hours. Look for the new Gianatsis Design produced Mikuni campaign featuring Andra Cobb in Hot Bike, American Rider and Iron Works magazines in the coming months.

And needless to say, Andra was quickly rebooked by Jim to be featured in the upcoming 2005 Iron & Lace Calendar togther with the awesome new Confederate / By design concept bike Wraith. You can also see a lot more of beautiful Andra in the coming weeks in Meet The Models and Members Corner.

For more information on Gianatsis Design Associates advertising, photography and marketing services for your company go HERE.

click here to see even more sexy ...