Samurai Code: Fuller Moto's 'Shogun'
[Originally published in Cycle World, Nov.16 2016]
There’s a lot of loose talk about ‘motorcycles as art’ in this red-hot Custom bike moment, but sometimes, the shoe fits. That seems a function of time invested as much as styling or fabrication chops; with dozens of talented builders vying for global attention, some great, near-great, and not great motorcycles are delivered to your inbox daily. The best have tremendous artistry applied, and a very few – usually with years and thousands of hours invested – transcend the motorcycle genre, rising to the realm of art, where function no longer seems to matter.
Bryan Fuller thinks he’s finished with his ‘Shogun’, but after 8 years collaboration between 3 artisans at the top of their game, perhaps (like DaVinci’s dictum about art) the trio have merely abandoned the Honda CB550 in an exceptionally beautiful state. Fuller won’t add up the hours involved, nor the expense of working with a top-tier commercial graffitist (Totem) and master engraver (Tay Herrera) for so long; he only claims ‘This is the most expensive CB Honda ever.’ Even the handgrips, each thread woven then plaited by a traditional Samurai sword maker, took 2 years of patience from Japan. We haven’t seen this level of attention to 2 wheels since Ian Barry’s Falcons.
Like Barry’s outrageous creations, the Shogun’s shape is not the point; squint your eyes and it’s another well-done CB café racer. Zoom in on the details, though, and you’ll have a pleasant sequence of ‘oh s**t’ moments. I don’t recall seeing dragons carved – not cast or painted - on wheel rims before, nor any kind of engraving on the actual hubs. Those were the first parts Fuller sent to Tay Herrera, which he promptly refused; ‘Nope, can’t reach it, can’t be done’, says Fuller, ‘we argued cross-country for 3 weeks, and he still says carving the hubs was near impossible.’
The imagery Herrera carved was Sharpie’d onto metal by Totem, as Fuller finished parts and handed them to his fellow Atlanta artist. ‘The Kanji is all about the art of metal’, explains Fuller, ‘on the forks legs, one side is ‘art of’, the other side is ‘steel’. The headlamp says ‘illumination’, the ignition cover is ‘speed’, the clutch cover is ‘power’; the seat says ‘the god of wind’ - a little joke. The Samurai on the tank is fabricating in metal; on one side he’s cutting, on the other he’s welding up a Koi fish; portraying the 4 things you can do with metal, beat/cut/bend/join, that’s the usual metalworking theory.’ The story might be Metalwork 101, but the execution makes the Shogun itself a totem to the art of creation.
The bones of the Shogun are pure Fuller Moto and built for speed, using his own custom chromoly frame and swingarm, and hand-formed tanks. The formerly plastic Honda head- and tail-lamp buckets were cast in aluminum by Fuller so they, too, could be carved up. The motor was pumped to 600cc and flowed by John Kaase Racing, and Honda supplied racing CR controls and brakes, so the machine is Sho and Go, and when the project has been complete enough to ride, Fuller has ridden it as a work in progress. ‘I rode it to Sturgis 8 years ago as a café racer, before that was common – I was worried the Harley guys would beat me up.’
Four years later, when the tank and seat were finished, he returned to Sturgis for the ‘Ton Up!’ café racers exhibit I co-curated with Michael Lichter, and the Honda was already impressive. It took a further four years to make the Shogun a masterpiece. That’s hardly a viable production schedule, but to Fuller, that wasn’t the point; ‘The essence of building something really great is the time – how long does it take to write a great novel? If it took 20 years it didn’t matter.’
The Shogun is now for sale, but it was never about the money for Fuller, it was the remarkable collaboration with Totem and Herrera. ‘All 3 of us are in our mid-40s - we’ve apprenticed, we’ve been trained, the bike is a combination of 3 mature artists, which is really unusual. But it’s still really raw; there are a lot of flaws, but people aren’t perfect, and art isn’t perfect.’ But those wavy hand-carved lines, hammer dings, and scratches give the Shogun a wabi-sabi perfection, and make it irresistible to the eye. It was 8 years well spent.
John Player Norton - My First Motorcycle
By Steven D. Black
I used to think that Nortons were mythical motorcycles—that they existed only as a pretend brand name in Dan O’Neill’s Odd Bodkins cartoon strip, run in the San Francisco Chronicle. When I was in high school, I lived in Sonoma, which is in the valley just east of Petaluma. Back then Petaluma was crammed with chickens, chicken coops, and chicken processors, so it was especially funny to see a cartoon Norton break down and strand our heroes in the Chicken Capital of the World. These days the coops are gone or (rarely) renovated as workshops and outbuildings that have absolutely no function related to chicken husbandry. I was also stimulated by O’Neill’s concept of the Magic Cookie in the gas tank—such a Cookie could actually send a Norton to Mars, even if Nortons were mythical beasts.
Tehuelche! A History, Part 2
by Vladimir Nekola
Tehuelche in Motormovil
At the beginning of 1960 Tehuelche was on its way to be manufactured in the Motormovil factory. This same factory imported “spare parts” of Legnano, Bicicletas Legnano, DEMM and Garelli. Tehuelche was the only bike that was completely created in Argentina, and that was the attraction point for Natalio Cortes, the owner of Motormovil. With the Tehuelche, he showed the government that he had a local product. By this time the government had become aware of the trickery with the importation of “spare parts” and was beginning to put an end to it by imposing various regulations. Cortes continued fighting this development with little success.
When the government passed legislation in 1962 stopping the importation of “spare parts”, there were still containers full of these parts sitting in the Buenos Aires port. So, foreign bikes continued to appear on the market resulting in tough competition for the Tehuelche. Eventually, foreign bikes disappeared from the market and this could have provided an advantage for the factory that produced a totally local motorcycle, and there was no marketing reason to stop production. It could have been one of the few bikes available. However, production was not profitable enough for Motormovil. The bike became obsolete - the engine was outdated; customers wanted something more durable and easier to fix, like the two-stroke engines found in the Puma Cuarta Serie (with a 125 Sachs engine). The Tehuelche was no more.
The Racing Competition
As mentioned, the Tehuelche prototype was born as a racing motorcycle; so when the bike hit the market later as a utilitarian machine, many customers immediately tuned their bikes for racing. The first recorded participation of a Tehuelche in a race was in November 1957 at the Buenos Aires racetrack. This was an international race for the 125 cc class. No record can be found about the performance of the Tehuelche in this race.
In 2024, 75 years after its first predecessor appeared, a motorcycle called Tehuelche stood out in one of the most important motorcycle events in Europe, the Motogiro d’Italia. This event consists of six stages covering 1600 kms. Three Tehuelches participated in this grueling event. They didn’t win any prizes or arrive first in any of the stages, but they did finish. In fact, they finished the race in admirable working state, something that cannot be said of many of the other bikes that participated, all of which were bigger, and many more modern than the Tehuelche. At 75cc it was the smallest displacement engine among the 180 participating bikes. Because the Tehuelche was from 1957, it entered the event in the most prestigious category, Rievocazione Storica (Historic Reenactment).
A Fine Line, Part 3: Underground Artists
I'm sitting at my early 1900s wooden desk in my basement listengin to KZAP, an original sixties FM radio station that's still going here in Sacramento, looking up at a poster made - and signed - by Dave Mann. It's one of his rare non-'biker' paintings, showing an early rider on a pre-sixteen motorcycle crossing an old wooden bridge in a forest. It was given to me by an old friend, a motorcycle rider - and an exceptional artist in his own right - called Bob Wise. He does a lot of motorcycle and old car art.
2025 Quail MotoFest
I don't care much about prizes and awards. I've never been a trophy guy (or even a trophy girl), and while I've been awarded a few plaques over the years, only one award sits in my home today; a Jaeger 8-day clock restored by Dennis Quinlan, presented on the occasion of my first tenure as President of the Velocette Club. That was 30 years ago, and the clock was a symbol of support, as I'd shifted my priorities, evolving from flamboyant participant and entertaining pain in the ass, to someone who made an effort, ensuring wankers just like me could carry on enjoying motorcycles in a fun context.
We then commenced an 80-mile loop through Salinas Valley south to Carmel Valley Road, with a pit stop at Wrath winery. I made bad jokes about 'trampling out the vintage', since the grapes of Wrath were stored there. The winery was beautiful, and Northern California was showing off after some late Spring rains, draping herself in velvety green hills, with abundant wildflowers in her hair. After 5 months in the far far south California desert, NorCal looked lush and delicious, and I drank it in, burbling along in the middle of the 80-strong pack. Cruising speed, Scotty.
Saturday dawned foggy and cool for the MotoFest, which is par for the course in Carmel Valley. A full complement of volunteer judges swarmed the field at 9am, when owners and journalists were allowed on the field. That was the time to take photos, though I only shot a few this year - too many hands to shake and hugs to share: thanks to Corey Levenson for once again being a pro and providing his excellent photos for this story. By 10am the public was on the field, which never felt crowded. Participation was down a bit this year, with fewer bikes on the field than 2023 (the previous dry year), although there seemed to be about as many attendees as usual. The vibe was, as always, excellent; relaxed and friendly. There was great food (taco trucks! Ice cream!), and good music all day. It's about the most pleasant motorcycle gathering imaginable, and it's a wonder more folks don't make the effort - tickets were as cheap as $50 this year, and there were so many super cool bikes to see, most of which had great stories, if you chatted with their owners, and in the case of race bikes, that included some of the legends who rode them to glory.
Tehuelche! A History, Part 1
Tehuelche, an obscure Argentine motorcycle
By Vladimir Nekola
At the end of the second World War, Argentina welcomed immigrants whose countries were suffering from economic and physical destruction. Many of these immigrants were also worried about a possible third World War, and Argentina was looking to populate a vast land full of resources. The Argentine government was especially keen to facilitate emigration from Spain and Italy. Three Italians with technical knowledge and skills to design and build motorcycle engines saw a unique opportunity to start a new life in the new world.
When the project came to a standstill and the partners realized that the prototype, RPF, had no future, the partnership was dissolved. Raffaldi and Fattorini moved to Rosario in the province of Santa Fe, where they had friends. There, Raffaldi started to design and manufacture another engine, this time a 125 cc two-stroke. This engine would be more practical for a utilitarian motorcycle. However, this project also came up short, again for lack of financial support. As had been the economic state of many Italian immigrants before them, Raffaldi and Fattorini were financially ruined.
Tehuelche!
Not having lost their motivation, the two Italians moved once again and settled in San Martin, Buenos Aires, an area that had a substantial community of Italian immigrants. They found work in different factories in order to support their families since they were almost bankrupt from their previous projects. In their scarce free time, in 1954, Raffaldi and Fattorini started fixing motorcycles for the neighborhood. At the same time, Raffaldi began working at a new project that was realistically closer to what the country needed for utilitarian transportation. It was a 50 cc four-stroke, all aluminum engine, with a single overhead cam.
The market competition
Next week, Part 2 of the Tehuelche story.
The Eternal LIFE of Betty Drafton
It’s the original ‘who is she?’ scenario; a hot blonde on a motorcycle wearing a tight sweater over a bullet bra and turned-up dungarees. Specifically, she’s riding a 1947 Velocette MAC bob-job, photographed while cruising through Griffith Park. Photographer Loomis Dean’s unpublished ‘LA motorcycle women’ photo series from 1949 is Insta-famous, but little effort has been made to discover the back story on the ladies. Luckily, their identity is now known, as the women were photographed riding (and even racing) at other times and places. There might be a sexist assumption that Betty Drafton and the other lady riders pictured in 1949 are riding ‘their boyfriend’s bikes’, but the LA ladies captured by Dean were rough riders indeed, who competed – as they could – in off-road competitions, and knew their way around a motorcycle.
An Imposter in Veloland
By Mark Lapriore
The first annual East Coast Velocette Owners Club rally: An Imposter’s Take
I thought it would be fitting, as a first time participant in any motorcycle rally, to write about my experience bringing a mid-1950s BMW motorcycle to a Velocette rally in Massachusetts. Or, how to make friends by bringing a mid-50s BMW with a camera strapped to the side to a British bike ride. Either way, the cold and rainy weekend in Sturbridge Mass is not one I’ll soon forget. A short introduction: my name is Mark Lapriore. I was involved in high-end aircooled German vehicle restoration work for 30+ years, mostly out on the West coast. Now I’m in Rhode Island.
My Motorcycle History, Part 3: 'Evel'
It's 1968, and I’m sitting in the Parts Department office at Bill Brownell Honda–Triumph, ordering parts, when in walks Evil Knievel. He starts ranting on about how someone has stolen his car and kidnapped his wife! He needs a ride to the Police Station, but first he calls the Enterprise Record to let them know what’s happening. I take a Honda CB750 off the showroom floor, Evel jumps on the back, and off we go to Chico City Hall. He tells the dispatcher that he was visiting his bone specialist and when he came out to leave, his car, along with his wife who was waiting in it, was gone! By then the reporter arrives and asks what all the fuss is about, and Evel repeats his diatribe.
Montlhéry 2011: A New Event?
It appears that motorsports activity hasn't entirely died at the Circuit du Linas Montlhéry, just south of Paris. This is the most historic banked racetrack in the world, which is still intact and functional (Brooklands is too far gone, Daytona is too new, and Indianapolis only had ONE motorcycle race in the 20th Century - 1909). Finished in October 1924, the fully banked oval is 2.5km long, and two longer 'road courses' using only one end of the banking were also laid out, although the much longer circuit through the adjoining forest is no longer in use.
ADDENDUM: Below is a note from the organizers of Vintage Revival Montlhéry:
“VINTAGE REVIVAL” AT MONTLHERY
Plans are well advanced for a vintage gathering next year at Montlhéry, the dates being 7th and 8thMay 2011. Many will remember the tremendous atmosphere of the events a decade ago and it is hoped to recreate this spirit in 2011. Organisation is in the hands of two French clubs, “Vintage Revival” (of which Mrs. Jacqueline Potherat is honorary chairman) and “Patrimoine Sportif et Mécanique”.
The website is at http://vintage.revival.free.fr
Anonymous said...
One other historic race track could be mentioned, Indianapolis. Twelve years old when Montlhery opened, and twice the corners.
murderdromecycles said...
Hi Paul,
my friends and me are loving Montlhéry. We raced there from ´99 to 2005 and had a lot of fun. Good news for May 2011! Look my Blog
Dave said...
I must dispute the contention that Montlhery is the most historic race track in the world that is still intact and functional. The Milwaukee Mile race track has been stages race every year since 1903 and is in the same location and configuration as it was in 1902 EXCEPT that it was paved in 1954. pretty much every American racer of note has raced here from Barney Oldfield up to Danica Patrick and everyone in between. The first win for the Lotus Ford Indy cars was here. Several races are held here each year although the Indy cars will not appear here in 2010.
Almost as old is the hill climb at Shelsley Walsh. They are still holding hill climb events here although it is perhaps technically not a race track.
Great Blog BTW
J Kraus said...
This sounds like a fantastic event and I may have to make room on my calendar. Montlhéry is indeed a wonderful circuit, and I had the pleasure of sampling it first-hand in a vintage Porsche at the 2000 Rallye de Paris. That was the era prior to the mid-bank (East) chicane. The highlight of every lap was coming off the high bank at speed and diving into the exit chicane.
The track was closed shortly thereafter and was thought to (as you mention) be headed for extinction, yet once again it has successfully defied “progress.”
WooleyBugger said...
I enjoyed the heck out of this article. I can't get enough of history of this sort. Thanks
Bob said...
It's possible to maintain the track if vintage events could be scheduled there more frequently. Seems the track became outdated in the early 1960s as the prevailing speeds were unsuitable. But it could be fun with Morgan Super Sports, Norton Manx, etc.
Anonymous said...
Hi ,does anyone know what A.G.A.C.I
means that was on the outside of the banking wall ?
Thanks
Grossglockner Hillclimb, Austria: 2010
The Grossglockner Hillclimb was founded in August 1935, with the brilliant idea of timed races up a newly opened, spectacular pass up the eastern Austrian Alps. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road, had only opened one day prior to the first race, which featured both cars and motorcycles; while the motorcycle entries were light, it's interesting to note the fastest motorcycle time (Martin Schneeweiss on an Austro-Omego JAP 600cc) was only two seconds slower than the fastest car - Carlo Pintacuda in a Scuderia Ferrari Alfa Romeo 8C.
Oh, the glory! A fantastic and magical motorcycle, fast as all getout and the raucous bang reverberated down the stone walls of the road banks. With the throttle twisted hard, she lunged forward with mountainous torque, and kept going faster. Nobody not nothing was getting in my way, the bike shot past every car and bike on that twisty road, mad quick and handling impeccably, even the very short bars didn't slow cranking over into the turns. Bumps didn't deflect the bike at all, it never got out of shape, even with a full handful of throttle while banked over in third gear. This was by far the fastest Vincent I've ever ridden, and the best handling, no comparison, somebody did something right on this baby, it's pure magic, and we got along great. The ride up the gorge was even better of course, and the sound of that engine wound out in second and third gear made me want to keep going all day, up and down that little road, lack of plates and lights be damned.
But of course, I wasn't in freewheeling California, and one of the race organizers greeted my return with a frown, as it seemed my 100mph antics were 'endangering the whole event'; he gave Walo a talking to as well! Gee, I thought this was a race meeting, my bad. Strange that racers were flying up and down the gorge all day, but there was only one dressing-down... there is a deeper story here which I'll reveal only if you buy me a beer...
Carlo Mollino and 'The Australian Wall'
Carlo Mollino was a legendarily idiosyncratic architect, furniture and interior designer, writer and photographer, who dipped a toe into automobile design just once, for a unique 'bisiluro' car that competed at LeMans in 1955. I recently wrote an article about Mollino for The Automobile magazine, my favorite print mag about old vehicles, which is not averse to motorcycle content. The article took deep research, because little has been written about his LeMans racer in context of Mollino's whole career and life: he was stylish and secretive, absurdly gifted yet unmotivated by success, built only a baker's dozen buildings and a few hundred pieces of furniture (which now sells for $Millions), and never showed the extraordinary photographs he took of women between 1950-1973, that are now inextricably linked with his overall legacy.
It came into being on a summer sea crossing, and was so named by Oberon, to whom terse words came easily to clothe thoughts and brainwaves. On warm evenings, the acrobats thought up acts bound by a hair's breadth to the laws of physics governing our arduous earthly movements. They are always trying to cheat these grievous laws and, upon making a discovery, work for months in great secrecy to fabricate a sensational demonstration congenial to the unfocused bourgeois spectator.
Ciro Beck was a formidable inventor who had already outdone his Japanese master, who professed the mystique of acrobats and sold his breakthroughs for fabulous prices. All this was in the glory days of the circus. Oberon met Ciro Beck on a return trip from Europe in 1925. Few circuses still survived there, struggling and united in four huge convoys around that monstrous degeneration that is the three-ring circus. Ciro Beck was returning home laid off; his circus had gone down the drain and sold everything, down to the last lion cub. A disenchanted audience was no longer interested, and - lightheaded on gasoline - laughed mercilessly at the pink jersey of the female rider and her white horses bowing to schmaltzy Strauss waltzes. Real horses, not racing ones, were about to become prehistoric beasts, only to be reborn idealized in the lights of the myth; crazed among ruins against the desperate skylines of early De Chirico paintings.
The scattered acrobats, gripped by hunger and swallowing their caste pride, submitted to the abjection of theirs derided act, stuck between the refined speaker and a brazen ditty in the sleaziest of variety theaters. Gone were the days when any self-respecting acrobat travelled in a sleeping car and had a valet. Now they roll about in 3rd class with un-initialed travelling cases, and carry their own fiber suitcases, panting. At the thought of such decadence (which placed him behind the chalky and stigmatized thighs of the now countless roving sisters), Ciro Beck turned mean, and it was in this indignant mood beneath the tropical sky that he thought up a challenge: a wall of danger regaining the hope of celebrity, with a flash of genius.
Behind an eager client lies always, like a shadow, a devil Incarnate in the form of a servant, lover, or wife's man-friend, and so 'one of the family'. They take it upon themselves to adopt delaying tactics simply for the fun of it: they speak of ridiculous, crazy, fashionable, of things that look good on paper but then... and profess their aesthetics even if they trade in stock, even if they are gentlemen. When an architect is sure that he has 'turned' his client and sees him departing filled with the al- modern dream, he may tremble because the client may return the next time gloomy and evasive, and all is gone to rack and ruin. Then, the intelligent architect must remember the devil Incarnate and immediately take radical steps, just as Oberon did. The angel of evil also appeared in the distant tropics, alongside a dreamy Ciro Beck, in the guise of Old Club Man. Oberon instantly recognized him, thanks to a secret sense, and straightaway heard him lying with the prose of a stylish old man. There was no time to lose, and he jumped up and whispered in his ear. What was Oberon's spell? We know not, but perhaps with calm conviction he asked him to jump into the sea: Oberon never threatened. The Old Club Man asked the 'right time', slowly stood up and, gibbering - he was always slightly drunk - about some odd appointment, disappeared forever into the darkness. That was Oberon's first crime.
There was nothing thrilling before the Australian Wall; paid-for thrills, I mean. The inner surface of a cylinder 10 meters in diameter and 15 high was a frightening vertical track where, suspended in midair, horizontal and clinging to a motorcycle launched at top speed, Ciro Beckett launched the most captivating maneuvers, before the eyes avid for disaster of the common people, crowded on high around the edge of the scary and thundering pit. Something pure and prodigious, the acrobatic masterpiece.
Then came the final act of daring: the crowd stupefied by the noise, as if in a dream, saw Ciro Beck - invested by blue smoke from the exhaust and flashes of chrome - released the handlebars, raised his yellow palms (boar-skin gloves) high in the air and stretched them out as if in defiance. Only his knees controlled the raging motorcycle that fell several times in vast precise and vertiginous elipses into the misty abyss, before reascending each time with sure impetus into the light, almost invoking freedom. A moment's lapse and the screaming monster and its meticulous magician would have been flung from the track as if by a monstrous catapult, only to be smashed far away on the paving of the square.
Ciro Beck did all these simple and terrible things. Style-perfect and ceremoniously, he executed all the street tricks of bullish suburban bikers. Suspended in midair he made the hair of Sydney's sharp dressers stand on end, amazed the coy half-caste girls, and prompted the butchers to cry 'stop it!' - the acme of true emotion. The crowd expected Cyro Beck to kill himself from one day to the next but, in five years, he never even spoiled the crease in his trousers, and made a fortune.
The narrating construction created for the delirium was animated from above by the crowd crammed into three rows around a circular balcony on high: white along the parapet and as shiny as black shoe polish below, it overhung the top of the large purple-red cylinder. Oberon had also created that feverish red, toiling for a week before Ciro Beck's anxious eyes, he too shocked by the labored delivery of such a lethal red. Oberon pursued that very red, perhaps like Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death', that violent death threat of certain roses from his homeland, tinged at the tips with velvety black and stirring fear and curiosity both. There is nothing arcane in all this, he was familiar with the great power of color to create and move space, and govern sentiments, and he painted architecture and statues with specific colors; brash to the brainless and sophisticated both. So, with sure intuition, he painted the large cylinder that indigestible red, producing a vibrant, shiny, and rugose surface. Above it he traced in precise positions four bright trajectories in yellow which, close to the vitreous red, blinded like neon lights.
In front of the cylinder was a luminous frame painted in tragic magnesium white, not shiny; the entrance. It was like a frame that, after a previously happy life, had suddenly been struck by lightning, incinerated in that position for life and condemned by the architect to remain thus for all eternity. This is how the unschooled Oberon described the Wall to us, with effective images and an ambassador's tongue.
If at all possible, they should look beyond those 'indispensable' proportions - which here too are faultless - and try to see architecture. In the left hand corner there is a pen drawing, one of Oberon's renowned primitive drawings, which along with others helped us paint a picture of that attraction that our minds could grasp. Oberon came to us as a novice, learning to draw properly much later, as required by schools of architecture. He almost learned after producing his finest architecture. For a long time he was happily ignorant of Mongo's method of projection, which is now in our blood from birth. He saw plans, elevations sections, and perspective as necessary and painful accomplishments. We shall talk of this suffering in due time; suffice for now to see that this vibrant drawing contains all Oberon's construction with precision, and from it and the surviving notes in his notebook on measurement and colors, we effortlessly reconstructed and exactly illustrate the elevation of the Australian wall.
Fifty percent of the architecture of all time has had advertising intentions. - Carlo Mollino, 1933
The Motorcycle Portraits: Jack Penton
The Motorcycle Portraits is a project by photographer/filmmaker David Goldman, who travels the world making documentaries, and takes time out to interview interesting people in the motorcycle scene, wherever he might be. The result is a single exemplary photo, a geolocation of his subject, and a transcribed interview. The audio of his interviews can be found on The Motorcycle Portraits website.
The following is a portrait session with Jack Penton, a legend of motocross, the son of John Penton, and an AMA Hall of Fame member. and the youngest person ever to win a Gold Medal at the ISDT, at 15. He also earned 27 National Enduro titles, lots more Golds at ISDTs, and countless other off-road event. And he did it himself, preparing and maintaining his own machines. "I always did all of my own set-up and maintenance. For nearly 20 years of national and world competition, I never had a mechanic. That’s how we were taught to operate in our family, and I think it gave us an advantage because we had intimate understanding of our machines and a higher level of self-confidence." David Goldman caught up with Jack in Idaho Springs ID on Aug 20, 2020, and asked him a few questions about motorcycling. The following are his responses:
Introduce yourself:
Hi, this is Jack Penton and we're here in Idaho Falls and I'm a lifetime motorcyclist. I was born into motorcycling. My father John Penton had a motorcycle store when I was just born. And my first ride on a motorcycle was actually when I was three months old. He sat me on a gas tank and we took a ride and I've been riding ever since. I've raced around the world, and I'm very fortunate to be in the AMA Hall of Fame. I have a a world of friends here in motorcycling.
How did you first get started with motorcycling?
Being born into a motorcycle family, my two older brothers and myself. We naturally gravitated to motorcycles real early. And as we began to race and we raced amongst ourselves in our own family, if you could beat your brother that was what got you a trophy and into races. So as we got a little bit older, we started spreading out and we began to race nationally, and doing well in the nationals. By the time I turned 16, my dad said I was old enough, and I should be going to the international six days trials, which was the world Olympics in Europe each year. And at 16. I went there and I did real well and I rode that for the American team representing the United States for 12 times in the ISDT. And won a couple of national championships and off road racing, 31 nationals along the way, so I've had a great racing career and then since then, I've been able to do a lot of leisure and casual riding adventure riding with my friends. Some lifelong racer friends and some new friends I make along the way
What is a Great Experiences or story you can share that happened thanks to bikes?
One of the greatest racing experience I've ever had was in 1970 we went to Spain, and it was my brother Tom, my brother, Jeff, myself and my dad. And we all rode the six days together. There were four family members, it was my first six days, my father's last six days. And probably one of the only times in history of the six days that a whole family is ridden together. From the riding side, that's probably the highlight of the racing. But here later, in the last few years, I've been able to travel with my father and we've been able to see him inducted into a number of Hall of Fame's and we made a trip to Austria to the Moto Hall in Austria. And he got accolades for beginning the Penton motorcycle and is permanently enshrined in the Hall of Fame over there are in their moto Hall. And that was quite an honor. And I was so, so happy that my dad at 93 years old and myself could attend that event.
What do motorcycles mean or represent to you?
To me, motorcycling is a way of life and in a way my life has always been in motorcycling it's where all my friends are. All of the greatest experiences in my life revolve around something that had to do with motorcycling, I believe, short of the birth of my children and my marriage. motorcycling has provided me with most of the the most joyous times in my life. And the thousands of friends that I've met along the way. My dad has a saying that every day is an experience and motorcycling provides an experience for everybody that swings a leg over one and I've had so many I'm so fortunate that way.
'The Kompressor' - Patricio Castelli
By Patricio Castelli. Photos by Juan Paviolo
I was about 12 years old when I found a motorbike encyclopedia in fascicles. As I immersed myself in that world a bike caught my attention: there was a picture without text of the Ernst Henne's BMW WR750 Kompressor with which he beat some speed records in the 1930s. It was an image so strong that 40 years later I'm still looking for the magic that was in that picture .
The bike I constructed is not intended to be a tribute, nor a replica: it is simply a free reinterpretation of a bike that captivated me and stimulated my imagination and love for design and construction.
The path started a few years ago, when I bought with a friend an Italian boxer engine from Secma Limbiante, very similar to a BMW 500. From that starting point I adapted a BMW R50 gearbox and a Japanese Aisim AMR compressor, and also made the particular ‘aerodynamic’ valve covers. I wanted to keep some features from the Henne bike, like the shape of the handlebars and the absence of a front brake. I also took some liberties, like the aluminum fork made of two wing profiles, and the bolt lock with wire: these are all nods to BMW's aeronautic heritage.
In the year 2024 the bike was exhibited at Autoclasica 2024 and won the 1st prize in the category ‘Craftsmanship’.
Million Dollar Babies
With the recent sale in Las Vegas of the first confirmed Million Dollar Motorcycle (at auction), let's have a look at our list of other bikes that have sold for seven figures. Only one is confirmed, as auctions are generally the only verifiable sale, although of course trickery is always possible, and auction houses have been known to tout sales that didn't actually happen - as with the 'Captain America' chopper a few years back, and a Winchester motorcycle, each of which laid claim to the 'highest price ever paid at auction' in their PR, but both of which proved false on examination [see our 'Money Talks: the Rest Send Press Releases']. Private parties have claimed big sales, and newspapers have reported them too, so I've kept my list to motorcycle sales that seem legit, and some on this list I've verified personally with the buyers.
There are very likely other private sales of over $1Million, but I have yet to find details to support their inclusion; one of those rumors concerns a Honda RC166 six-cylinder GP racer, possibly sold to the Honda Museum for seven figures. There are others, with less credibility, but for the following I've been at least able to follow a trail, and ask a few questions.
Does a Million Dollar Baby mean anything to the motorcycle market, or the culture of motorcycling? No. But it's fun to watch from the sidelines, as let's face it, you and I were never going to own a 1915 Cyclone or an original-paint 1912 Henderson Four, so let the collectors have at it; a duel of credit cards at 20 paces! En garde!
1. 1915 Cyclone: $1.32 Million (Mecum Auctions January 2025, Las Vegas)
The auction action was thrilling: I was working Mecum's TV coverage of the sale, and we had anticipated a big price, but when bidding topped $1Million, I knew we were in for some entertainment. You can watch the sale on my Instagram channel, as I filmed my monitor screen during the action, with live TV commentary. You don't get to do that but once in a lifetime.
2. The 'Captain America' Chopper: ~$1.3Million (private sale, 2014)
3. 1970 'Triple Crown Special' gold-plated Speedway Champion winner - $1,260,700
4. The 1947 'Bathing Suit' Vincent: ~$1.1Million (private sale, 2011)
5 (tied). 1936 Crocker Big Twin Serial #1: ~$1Million (Private sale)
Al Crocker's V-twin was the fastest production motorcycle in the world in 1936, not that there was much production: it's estimated less than 75 were built between 1936-43. The Crocker predated the Harley-Davidson Knucklehead as the first OHV V-twin built for the street in the USA, and it was probably 20mph faster than a standard Knuck, especially if the customer ordered the full 100ci engine capacity available (they were usually 61ci - 1000cc). Al Crocker offered a money-back guarantee to any Crocker owner who was beaten by an Indian or Harley-Davidson, and there was never a need to make such a refund. Crockers have only grown in demand, with prices topping $600k in 2019. But Serial #1, the very first Crocker Big Twin, apparently sold to a California collector for a cool $1Million a few years back. I've heard the rumor from Those Who Know, and the purported owner could certainly afford that - he has quite a few Crockers in his warehouse! (Sorry - no photo available)
5 (tied): 1912 Henderson Four $ 1Million (Private sale)
Thunderbirds are Go!
The success of any group ride depends primarily on the character of its participants, and how they get along. By that measure, the Thunderbird Ride, organized by Jared Zaugg, was superb, bringing together an interesting mix of folks, from wealthy collectors / museum owners, to world famous artisans, to racers, to journalists and filmmakers, to folks who simply love bikes. Of course, #2 critical point for a good ride is Location, and the Thunderbird Ride had me at 'Moab Utah', the heart of everything magical in America's canyonlands. Third on the list would be the mix of bikes, and again, the Thunderbird scored on variety, combining world-class customs by Shinya Kimura and Max Schaaf, several vintage Triumph/BSAs/Moto Guzzi/Harley-Davidsons, a couple of newer/hotted up Harley-Davidsons reserved for long-traveled guests from Austria, and a pair of vintage choppers. The photos tell the story: this was a mix not found on any other ride, as rallies tend to be all antiques, or all choppers, or all new bikes, with rarely a mix of everything on wheels.
The Legendary Nortons of Paul Adams
Anyone who ever lost a West Coast concours, anyone who raced AHRMA in the good old days, or vintage raced in New Zealand, or rode with the Velocette Club, knows the name Paul Adams. And if you’re really OG, you remember his front-page feature in Classic Bike back in 1986, with a devastating cover shot of the gleaming silver and black tank of a DOHC Daytona Norton Manx. That was one of Paul’s gorgeous restorations - which he happened to also race. How he came to restore that machine, and many other 'cammy' Norton International and Manx models, is a story in itself.
Paul Adams: “I'll start at the beginning. I owe a lot to my father, who was a millwright, and taught me about handwork and craftsmanship. That’s why I've never considered myself a collector; I considered myself a restorer. I had seen Nortons race when I was in junior high; my dad took us kids to the sports car races at various tracks around Southern California, and they often had a race for motorcycles. These shiny silver tank things with black and red stripes always seemed to win – they were Norton Manxes of course. So I had that in the back of my mind.”
Paul Adams: “I was a Navy guy, I’d enlisted when I was 17 and was in the reserves at Los Alamitos, in a P2V squad. Then I went to college for four years and got my degree in electrical engineering, then I went to work for North American and actually got to work on the Apollo program moon lander. But I owed the Navy three years of active duty as my reserve obligation, so I applied for flight training; now I owed them five years! I wasn't exactly smart when it came to managing that. I wound up flying A4 Skyhawks from the USS Kitty Hawk. My first cruise was 10 months in the western Pacific; the mission was to nuke Russia if necessary; this was 1963-64. Toward the end of that cruise Vietnam erupted, so we went down to operate off the coast in the South China Sea off Vietnam. Initially it was a big secret as we worked up in Laos, on the backside of North Vietnam. We lost a couple of guys there. When we were due for rotation after a 10-month cruise we came back home for about 6 months, then went back on my second cruise. That time it was all Vietnam; we did some flying in South Vietnam, but most of it was over the bad area. In North Vietnam we bombed big targets, so it was exciting, but we lost a bunch of guys, some were POW's, good friends of mine. When I got out of the Navy I flew for Continental Airlines. A perk was free flying passes, which came in handy later on as I became a regular traveler to vintage motorcycle swap meets, riding, and racing in England, New Zealand and Australia.”
“Then I found a 1962 Norton Model 50 that had been converted into a dirt bike, amazingly enough most of the bolts and everything on it were replaced with titanium! It was a real piece of work, and got me going on the Nortons. While I was restoring the Model 50, a friend of a friend from work, Jim Forrest, was introduced to me because he was a a similar soul, restoring an Ariel Red Hunter. We hit it off and he said ‘You gotta come on the Wednesday night rides.’ It turned out Jim’s dad was Howard Forrest, the guru behind Mustang motorcycles made in Burbank.
Paul Adams: “Yeah I was just getting to that! Jim Forrest worked there on the assembly line before he went to College, and one of the guys that worked there was Eddie Arnold. Ed organized a ride every Wednesday night out of his house up on Mount Washington and up the Angeles Crest Highway. Jim said, ‘it's really a lot of fun you gotta come along,’ so I did and got introduced to that world. Riding with us were Velocette riders John Munoz and Ron Thomas, so I fell in with a really bad lot! They got me going to the CAMA (California Antique Motorcycle Association) rallies every year, that Frank Conley put on. I got into the world of restoring; all these guys showed up with their restored bikes, and you could ride each other's bikes; we’d ride them around look at them and everything, in those days it was just enthusiasts, it wasn't a money thing at all. Everybody just did their own work and showed up at gatherings. That was my world, I fell in love with it. I'd been a model airplane junkie when I was a kid, and I wound up just doing restoration after restoration after restoration, because I was hooked on it and really enjoyed it. That started me off and I never looked back. Restoring bikes wasn't a money thing then, people didn't do it for money."
Paul Adams: “The bike I rode on all those Velocette rallies came from a neighbor, Don West in Palos Verdes. It had originally been sold by a San Diego dealer, and later acquired by Steve Tillett. He found it hard to start and traded it to Don for his BMW. Don brought it to a couple of the CAMA rallies but he was getting up in age – if he's still alive he'd be about 105. He sold it to me in the mid-1970s, so I’ve had it for 50 years. My friend Mick Felder, another neighbor on the coast of SoCal, invited me to a Velocette Club Spring Opener. That’s when I really had a purpose for the Velocette, so I started riding it all the time, on the 1000-mile Summer Rallies. I’d retired by then and could ride on the rallies I wanted, always on that Clubman.”
Paul Adams: “My Scrambler is unique, and documented as the only Thruxton-engined Scrambler ever built by Velocette. It was a special order from the factory by one of the ‘canal zone’ guys living in Panama, who all ordered British bikes direct from various factories to ride down there. Bill Hannah wound up with it, and he converted to look like a strandard Thruxton, so the only thing that was still looked like the Scrambler was the frame. That's the way I got it, but luckily Bill saved all the original Scrambler parts and it was all in great shape, so I converted right back to how it came from the factory. Then I used all the Thruxton bodywork and combined it with parts from Yashiko Thomas after Ron died. That used a Scrambler frame too. It looks like a brand new bike, but it's a bitsa.“
PDO: Since you've been at it so long, how do you see the collector motorcycle scene changing over the years?
Paul Adams: “I still have the bike John Munoz left me in his will, a rigid MSS with Swallow sidecar. I’m keeping my ‘Norton 4’ four-cylinder creation, and I can still ride that in my old age, it’s push button with electric start. I also have my Triumph pre-unit TR6C TT, I still ride that and just redid the engine. I was having problems with seizures, and I rebuilt it twice, finding things like worn out cams and stuff. I figured it was a timing problem that was causing it to seize, but the last time I took it apart I was blowing off the cylinder head and noticed bubbles coming up around the valve seats; turns out the head was cracked around both valve seats. I called Bill Getty, he goes all the way back to the early days, and he sorted me out with a new cylinder head, and it’s been no problems since, it runs great.”
Paul Adams: “One of the highlights of my career as a restorer and sometimes racer was in New Zealand. After Continental Airlines went bankrupt I returned to the the space world and went to work at Hughes Aircraft as a Flight Director of satellite launches. One day at work I got a call from a Ken McIntosh who wanted to talk about Nortons. It led to him inviting me down to go vintage racing at Pukekohe, near Auckland. I was a guest of Ken, we became good friends, and I kept going back for over 20 years! In the course of their events they always brought in noted racers as guests of honor and one of them was John Surtees. I met him at Ken's house on my first trip down there, and we hung around a little bit, and on my second trip down I arrived early and had to stay at a motel; John was there too, just the two of us, and we were eating breakfast and hit it off, not talking about bikes so much, and he offered to loan me one of his Manxes to ride at Goodwood Revival! That that was a highlight of my so-called racing career - to get an offer from a ride from Sir John Surtees. But all I could think of was ‘what if I dropped one of his bikes?’ I couldn't do it! I dropped my Nortons more than once, but that's racing.”
While John Surtees is a hero, there’s room for another in this story, and Paul has always been one of mine, ever since I read that 1986 Classic Bike article, which inspired me to start collecting bikes myself. Have a look at the remarkable Paul Adams Collection coming up for sale, it’s a corker, and if you want some really special, rare machines...call your bank manager.
Honeymoon on Mars, 1928
While it may sound like part of a wedding package circa 2050, after President-for-Life Musk develops his off-world colonies for space tourism, a lovely young German couple had the original Honeymoon on Mars nearly a Century ago. From a family album in a private collection (very near our lovebirds' home in Heilbronn), comes the anonymous tale that commences in 1925, with a proud young man on a Mars motorcycle. On this machine he toured, attended rallies with friends, even wooed and won his future bride, with whom he honeymooned after attaching a sidecar to his noble steed.
Our hero purchased his fabulous White Mars A20 in or before 1925, where he poses proudly in the woods near his home in Heilbronn, not far from the Mars factory in Nürnberg: it was the local product, one of many motorcycles manufactured in the region, but surely the finest in the era. He was an enthusiastic Mars man, and a member of the Mars Club, but he was no snob; he had friends who rode a D Rad, and even attended a D Rad rally with them in 1927. At a Mars Club rally in 1927, he proudly notes entering their road trial, where he rode 500km (300 miles!) without a single lost point, keeping his mount immaculate all the while.
As mentioned, the Mars was a unique and forward-thinking design built in Nurmburg, and was perhaps inspired by the proximity of airship and airplane construction in Friedrichshaven. The core of the design is the frame, a box-section tube made of bent sheet steel, riveted together. This incorporated the steering head and rear wheel support, as well as the fuel and oil tanks, and the twin-chain two-speed final drive. The result was an elegant design that looked far more modern than it was; the low power, two-speed drive, and lack of a front brake speak to the typical specifications of the day.
