Brat is the flat one. A brat-style build runs a low, flat, usually two-up seat that follows a straight line from the tank to the tail, chunky tyres at both ends, and almost nothing in the way of bodywork.
The name comes from Brat Style, the Tokyo workshop Go Takamine opened in the late nineties. What he was actually doing was building bikes that looked used rather than restored, with a deliberately unfinished feel and none of the mirror chrome the custom scene was obsessed with at the time. The West saw the photographs, copied the seat, and called it a style.
Which means most bikes labelled brat are not. A flat seat and knobbly tyres on an otherwise stock bike is a flat seat and knobbly tyres. The real thing is a whole attitude to finish.
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