‘Phuket Pro Care’ and the Suzuki Hayabusa Gen II 2008 – “Yeah Baby!!!”

I passed a motorcycle shop called Phuket Pro Care in Wichit, Phuket, about a year ago and something caught my eye that made me screech to a halt and stop the car. Parked outside was a stunning orange Suzuki Hayabusa Gen II 2008.

I ran into the shop and first asked if it was for sale to which the Thai owner Khun Ae replied with a rather disappointing two letter word. “No”. I did, however, form a great relationship with Ae that prompted my second request to which he agreed, and promised to let me return and review his workshop and motorcycle.

Left to right: James and Ae in interview.

“My father and uncle owned a car lot when I was a young boy, so I grew up surrounded by cars and bikes”.
Khun Ae – Owner of Phuket Pro Care.

A year since we first met, Ae and I finally sat in his workshop and got talking about his work with bikes. We learnt that Ae has been surrounded by machines all his life. “My father and uncle owned a car lot when I was a young boy, so I grew up surrounded by cars and bikes” he said. He himself has been professionally fixing and maintaining motorbikes at Phuket Pro Care for the best part of 10 years.

Phuket Pro Care provides purely a maintenance service with the ability to order and apply some performance modifications. Minor damage can also be repaired here, however, if a bike has been in a serious accident, then Ae has contacts that can take care of it. The same can be said for any complicated customizations to include resprays.

Following the interview we both got up and had a look at his incredible orange customized Suzuki Hayabusa Gen II 2008. This model of bike does make me go ga ga and weak at the knees and I was holding back my emotions as Ae detailed all the changes he’d made to the bike.

The original 2008 has a black rear end paint job and he changed this to make it all orange. There are also anodized bolts and components in various areas of the bike and graphite detail on the tank, rear end and surrounding the dials in the cockpit. Black radiator pipes were exchanged for cobalt blue to coincide with blue flame coloured ‘Beet Japan’ premium exhaust pipe which according to Ae set him back 180 odd thousand baht (£4,123 or $5,000USD). Not cheap but I have to tell you when you hear it on the road its sounds like it’s worth every penny.

It took three attempts before we braved the roads because rain showers kept threatening filming. I did have a waterproof Go Pro 9 on the front of the car but the Canon 90D bolted to the rear was not waterproof and is considerably more expensive. When the clouds looked to shift, we went for it and got filming.

Making motoring episodes for the Farangbowl is a real pleasure and when you get the right clips and marry this up with the right music and riding action there is nothing else like it. The video we made of Ae riding his Hayabusa in Phuket was one that will remain with me for some time and one that I hope as a content creator resonates with others that love these incredible machines as I do.