Let me say in advance, thank you for taking the time to check out Insight Customs and the work that we do. My name is Ben Taylor. I started the concept of Insight Customs in 1998 after leaving the music industry and having a love of motorcycles. Insight Customs has grown from a small 2 stall garage on my personal property to an old service garage on a main state road. Our growth is due mostly to surrounding myself with extremely supportive friends and family and from listening to the advice of people already involved in the industry.
Insight Customs started life as a metric specific shop specializing in the Yamaha Star brand of motorcycles. In 2002, on a bet from a friend who owned a Harley Road King, we built a bike that to this day I am very proud of. In 2004, we decided to move into a 2000 sq. ft. white box (commercial property) and performed work by appointment only. We developed insightcustoms.com and started to get work requests from surrounding states.
We built in 2003 a RoadStar known as the Gut-Ya bike and a photo shoot was done by Michael Farabaugh. The pictures turned out awesome! Flash forward to 2005 when we got a phone call from V-Twin Magazine and were informed that our bike was picked to be in the magazine. The Gut-Ya bike was featured in the September 2005 issue and was on the cover with a bike built by Orange County Choppers. At that time, it was the largest layout of a custom metric in the history of the magazine. The work started flying in and the next thing we knew, we decided to open with regular hours and built a retail area to stock all things cool for your ride. We have had other features from V-Twin and other magazines to date and are extremely thankful for all of them.
In 2008, we were approached to do an “In Memory Bike” by a local family that lost their son to a blood disease. The bike was titled “The Dakota Project” and took well over a year to complete. It made it’s debut at the Indy Motorcycle Expo in early 2009 and took 1st place for Overall Custom. The same year we moved Insight to it’s current location and started a whole new chapter.
We have dealt with a lot of highs and lows along the way but the reason we started Insight Customs has not changed. If you’re reading this to choose a bike shop to be “your” shop, know that we are a friends and family business and are grateful for all of the work that comes our way.
Thanks for your time and hope to see you soon!
