Motorbike enthusiast spent 20 years building the perfect custom trike after accident at work

Trikes may not be many people’s idea of a cool ride, but this custom trike ended up becoming a rolling symbol of resilience, patience, and obsession.

Featured on the Resto Revival ~ Car Stories YouTube channel, Nigel’s trike isn’t something bought off a showroom floor.

Instead, it’s something earned over two decades.

At its heart is a life-changing accident that rewrote everything.

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Almost everything was done by hand

The custom trike began life as a deeply questionable project: a rough Austin Metro–based machine with terrible wiring, constant overheating, and a look even its owner didn’t love.

Originally registered as a trike in 1997 and constructed by a company cheekily named ‘Shed Engineering’, it lived up to that reputation when Nigel first acquired it in 2005.

But instead of walking away, he saw potential.

Over the next 20 years, it went through three or four major rebuild phases, and it was slowly transformed into the perfect trike.

Power comes from a rebuilt 998cc Austin Metro A+ engine, paired with a refreshed automatic gearbox.

Everything from the rubbers and bearings to custom drives, cooling, exhaust, suspension, and braking has been reworked or replaced.

The frame, tank, guards, and brackets were all fabricated or modified by Nigel himself, with only specialist machining and engine work outsourced.

The result is a genuine nut-and-bolt rebuild with fewer than 400 miles on the refreshed drivetrain.

Working on the custom trike was a form of therapy

But this build is about more than engineering.

Nigel turned to trikes after surviving a serious workplace accident that left him with a depressed skull fracture, damaged nerves, memory problems, and long-term physical limitations.

Riding two-wheel motorcycles was no longer realistic, but giving up on vehicles altogether wasn’t an option for him.

This became both a solution and a form of therapy.

He documented obsessively, taking photos and notes so he could remember what he’d done from one day to the next.

When progress stalled, frustration followed.

Luckily, pushing through and finding a way to circumvent the problem became part of the healing process.

Today, riding it brings him a different kind of joy: less stress, more freedom, and space to simply enjoy the road.

Nigel freely admitted that he once dismissed trikes as ‘old man vehicles’, which probably indicates he never heard of this monster truck trike before.

Now, he said it’s the best decision he ever made.

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