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Performance & Design with Kully Millage
Written By: Sara Liberte
Kully Millage, like many others who forge a career in the moto industry, grew up a gearhead thanks to the influence of his father’s interests. As we sat down to talk about the future of Kully’s company, Kully Co., he couldn’t help but reflect on how the business got its early start.
“I still remember going to Canton cruise nights with my dad and getting excited to watch some burnouts. I know for a fact that I got my mechanical skills and eye for clean designs from him. When we weren’t working on cars together in the garage, we were going to races and car shows,” Kully shared.
Kully was always interested in cars and motorcycles, and was racing dirt bikes by the age of 13. He picked up welding in high school, which was about the time things started to come together for him. It wasn’t long before he was perfecting his welding technique, using CAD systems to develop one-of-a-kind designs and keeping himself busy with a steady flow of racing clients. He has been working for himself for a little over four years now and in that short time frame has been able to carve out a reputation for his clean, professional custom motorcycle and automotive builds/designs and his signature “winning” custom exhausts.
With such deep ties in the motorbike racing world, Kully was determined to stay involved. He was able to gain some serious attention when Henry Wiles, a professional flat track racer with 30 pro wins, ran Kully’s exhaust in the 2014 nationals and won. “He made my exhaust a success overnight.” Kully said.
Kully was determined to lunge forward with his career, and has since been building exhausts for major OEMs in the 450 flat track class, along with some pro teams in the 750 series. In 2017, Kully was hired to be a part of the factory Indian “Wrecking Crew” race team as a technician. He is flown in for every race and has enjoyed a wildly successful first year of team total domination.
Kully says he is looking forward to the 2018 racing season and is excited to continue working with Indian racing team manager Ricky Howerton. “Ricky is a great man to be working alongside. He has built an amazing career in racing, and also builds exhausts exclusively for many NASCAR and Indy race teams. It’s not very often you get the chance to work alongside someone like that. I have learned a lot from Ricky and look forward to learning more, bringing those skills to my high-caliber products,” Kully said.
Kully’s talents don’t end with his supreme exhausts; he has also designed and built a few custom motorcycles. Kully has worked several times with Mitchell, South Dakota’s Klock Werks in creating some one-off custom street exhausts for various projects owner Brian Klock was working on. He also built the exhaust for Suicide Machine Co.’s custom Husqvarna. That bike has certainly caught the attention of everyone that has an eye for detail and performance. Kully has built several ground-up custom motorcycles for himself and other clients, one of which can be seen at the Vern Eide MotoPlex.
Kully operates out of his shop right here in South Dakota with one full-time employee, Andrey Ignato. Though he has goals of outgrowing the space, Kully plans to stay where his roots are. He’s looking forward to crafting many custom projects out of his shop and will be focusing more on high-end, unique vehicles.
“Unique high-end fabrication is where my passion lies. That is what I am naturally drawn to. That is where I am taking Kully Co. in the future,” Kully explained.
I don’t doubt Kully for one minute. He has the skill, he has the work ethic, and he clearly has the design eye for this type of work. I look forward to catching up with him a few years from now and seeing the work he has accomplished.
Get to Know Kully Millage
Q. You can have one vehicle. Which do you choose?
A. I’d have to pick a Koenigsegg.
Q. One motorcycle. What do you pick?
A. Easy. Honda MotoGP.
Q. One race track to dominate. What is it?
A. Springfield Mile, no doubt.
Do you have a unique project you would like to inquire about? Get in touch with Kully!
Facebook facebook.com/kully.millage
Instagram Instagram.com/kullyco/
Email kullycoproducts@gmail.com
