Vintage Ralph Lauren RL-67 Steerhide Café Racer Single Rider Jacket

The Ace Café on the North Circular, a wet Saturday night in the early sixties. A lad drops a coin in the jukebox, kicks his bike into life and is gone before the first chorus. The game is to reach the roundabout and get back before the record ends. You don’t wear a lapel for that. Lapels flap. What you want is leather cut close to the body, a collar that stands up and snaps shut, and nothing else to slow you down. They called it the café racer.

The Americans took the jacket home and made it their own, and in 1996 Ralph Lauren gave it to a new label, Polo Jeans Co., his younger, rougher line, dressed in workwear and military detail. The line carried a number: RL-67, for the year Lauren started out, a young man selling wide ties out of New York.

Even the label plays the part. It’s laid out like an old service specification: a stock number, a contract standard, “Type A4”, and a military spec code ending USRL, for an army that only ever existed in Ralph Lauren’s imagination. At the bottom, in bold, is that 67. The line ran for ten years in America before Ralph Lauren bought it back in 2006 and closed it. This jacket is from that decade.

It’s built the way the originals were. The stand collar closes with a snap tab stamped Polo Jeans Co. R. Lauren. The front zip pull is stamped Conmar, a name from the zips of wartime American flight jackets, and runs on a leather tab, starting from a heavy slider at the hem stamped Ideal. Two zipped chest pockets hang on chain-and-ring pulls, and the cuffs zip closed. Round the back, a yoke and shaped side panels, along with sleeves pieced at the elbow, keep it sitting close when you lean forward over the tank.

The leather is the heart of it. It’s thick, heavy steerhide, drum-dyed so the colour runs right through rather than sitting on the surface, then burnished, so every high point has rubbed back to a warm tobacco while the creases stay deep and dark. The grain is deep and pebbled, almost like the old horsehide jackets, and it has gone the way good leather does, with honest scuffs across the front and a glow over the shoulders that only comes from wear.

Inside, there’s a quilted brown lining and a leather-faced front with a snap pocket.

Snap the collar shut, pull the zip to the top, and see how far you get before the record ends.

Condition & Restoration

Excellent condition. The steerhide came into the workshop strong and supple, and it has stayed that way: rich natural patina, deep creasing and a few light surface scuffs that are part of its age and character. The front and cuff zips have been cleaned, refurbished, polished and waxed, so they now run as smoothly as the day they were fitted. The collar snap and chain pulls all work as they should, and the quilted lining is clean and intact.

Specialist cleaned and conditioned in the workshop, and ready to wear.

Key Features

• Polo Jeans Co. RL-67 café racer by Ralph Lauren, late 1990s to mid 2000s
• Thick, heavyweight drum-dyed steerhide with a burnished finish
• Military-specification style label, marked M (measures a modern Small)
• Stand collar with snap tab, Polo Jeans Co. R. Lauren snaps
• Front zip with Conmar-stamped pull and leather tab, Ideal-stamped slider
• Two zipped chest pockets with chain-and-ring pulls
• Zipped cuffs
• Back yoke, shaped side panels and elbow-pieced sleeves
• Quilted brown lining with leather-faced inner snap pocket
• Leather hanging loop

Size & Fit

All measurements are taken with the garment laid flat.

• Chest, armpit to armpit: 21" / 53.3 cm
• Shoulders, seam to seam: 18" / 45.7 cm
• Sleeve, shoulder seam to cuff: 26" / 66 cm
• Underarm seam to cuff: 19" / 48.3 cm
• Back length, base of collar to hem: 25.5" / 64.8 cm

Best suited to: 38" chest, regular / Size Small, or a 40" chest for a slim fit.

Labelled a Medium, but it measures a modern Small, so please go by the measurements.

Fit: A true café racer cut, close through the body and narrow across the shoulders, sitting just at the belt. A 38" chest will have room for a jumper underneath; a 40" chest will wear it trim and close, the way café racers were meant to fit. The sleeves are generous, so they reach the wrist even when you’re stretched forward over the bars. The quilted lining adds a little warmth without much bulk.