The extravagance in which my surplus emotion expressed itself lay on the road. So long as roads were tarred blue and straight; not hedged; and empty and dry, so long I was rich.
TE Lawrence on 'Boanerges' ca.1926, during his time in the Tank Corps as 'aircraftsman Shaw'
Nightly I’d run up from the hangar, upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them, after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes my bed would be down, ready for the night: in four more I was in breeches and puttees, pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut, opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick: a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression.
Boanerges’ first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet College into life. ‘There he goes, the noisy bugger,’ someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman’s profession to be knowing with engines: and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off. ‘Running down to Smoke, perhaps?’ jeered Dusty; hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons.
Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordlily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine’s final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand.
George Brough chats with Lawrence on a c.1930 Brough Superior SS100. Brough is on crutches following a accident on his motorcycle. Perhaps the only greater showman than Brough was TEL!
Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England’ straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air’s coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar’s gravelled undulations.
Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.
Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewash Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself.
The Bristol fighter biplane, as mentioned in the text.
The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should.
The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the ‘Up yer’ Raf randy greeting.
They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot: but an overhead JAP twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering.
TE Lawrence was a very famous man during and after WW1, and his friendship with George Brough is evidenced in many letters between them, and TEL's allowance of his image in Brough Superior catalogs
We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. Bif caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp, we are, here: and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door.
I let in the clutch again, and eased Boanerges down the hill along the tram-lines through the dirty streets and up-hill to the aloof cathedral, where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous God: and man’s very best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness, in the sight of Saint Hugh and his angels.
Remigius, earthy old Remigius, looks with more charity on and Boanerges. I stabled the steel magnificence of strength and speed at his west door and went in: to find the organist practising something slow and rhythmical, like a multiplication table in notes on the organ. The fretted, unsatisfying and unsatisfied lace-work of choir screen and spandrels drank in the main sound. Its surplus spilled thoughtfully into my ears.
Lawrence in this years with the Tank Corps, which he joined for anonymity as an enlisted man, even though he held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Here he's wearing a tanksuit, and notably an early Omega wristwatch! Clearly not your average soldier...
By then my belly had forgotten its lunch, my eyes smarted and streamed. Out again, to sluice my head under the White Hart’s yard-pump. A cup of real chocolate and a muffin at the teashop: and Boa and I took the Newark road for the last hour of daylight. He ambles at forty-five and when roaring his utmost, surpasses the hundred. A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness. Because Boa loves me, he gives me five more miles of speed than a stranger would get from him.
At Nottingham I added sausages from my wholesaler to the bacon which I’d bought at Lincoln: bacon so nicely sliced that each rasher meant a penny. The solid pannier-bags behind the saddle took all this and at my next stop a (farm) took also a felt-hammocked box of fifteen eggs. Home by Sleaford, our squalid, purse-proud, local village. Its butcher had six penn’orth of dripping ready for me. For months have I been making my evening round a marketing, twice a week, riding a hundred miles for the joy of it and picking up the best food cheapest, over half the country side."
Lawrence cut quite a dashing figure in his white Arab dress, awarded him by the Arab tribesman for his valor and success in battle.
Notes on 'The Road'
T.E. Lawrence's essay on riding his Brough Superior is among the best things written about motorcycling. Lawrence writes about 'Boanarges', his 1928 SS100, the fastest production motorcycle in the world, and a considerable extravagance for a military man, as one could buy a nice cottage with the £120 purchase price. 'The Road' is Chapter 16 in Part III of Lawrence's book 'The Mint', and was written in 1929 but only published posthumously (in 1955) as per TEL's instructions.
'The Mint' is a collection of essays penned while serving in the Royal Air Force (1923-35), and edited by his brother, Professor A.W. Lawrence, who inherited T.E.L.'s estate (and who had to sell the American rights to 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' to pay inheritance taxes in England on Lawrence's death in 1935, aged 46 (in a crash on his SS100, which has spawned several books!). Lawrence gained his 'of Arabia' during the First World War, where his adoption of Arab dress, language, and custom gained him the respect of King Faisal, and convinced British brass to give T.E.L. a free hand to conduct commando raids on Turkish positions, using Arab tribesmen as his soldiers. After his rampant successes during the War (and promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel), he returned to England and sought the anonymity of enlisted military service to escape his fame, which partly resulted from cooperation with journalist Lowell Thomas during the Arab Campaign (Thomas sent frequent, romantic/heroic stories about Lawrence to the English press, and made him a hero). 'The Mint' chronicles those years spent in the RAF.
Lawrence published two original books during his lifetime; 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' (1926) and 'Revolt in the Desert' (1927), which was an abridged version of 'Seven Pillars'. Interestingly, Lawrence refused payment for his writing, feeling that he had already been paid by the government for his service in the military, on which the books were based. 'Revolt' was a best-seller, and profits went to a fund for children of RAF officers killed in action. If you're interested in reading his work, we'd suggest 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom'; Lawrence had a natural gift for writing, and his dear friend George Bernard Shaw helped him edit the the book. It's a classic.
TE Lawrence during a portrait session c.1917. He was fully aware of the romantic impact of an English officer wearing Arab garb.
100 years ago, San Francisco was a new city. As with most cities, it was built atop older cities, and the terrific shaking and subsequent fire of 1906 was, while dramatic, merely the latest in a string of disastrous fires destroying the city, ever since the the formerSpanish Mission outpostbecame a burgeoning port servicing theGold Rush of 1849(which is when my own family arrived). The city was built not only over the ashes of its former self, but also the very ships which delivered thousands to the maw of Gold Fever. Entire crews jumped ship to try their luck at mining, and the harbor grew a forest of masts from abandoned ships, an ironic contrast to the recently deforested hills and islands around the Bay. Today, every new hi-rise downtown schedules a few months for archeologists to clear out the Clipper ship carcasses used as landfill for what was to become our downtown.
A 1915 program for the Panama Pacific International Exposition, showing the Tower of Jewels, set with 102,000 'novagems' of Czech crystal, lit by 50 arc lamps. Behind is the Rainbow Scintillator, the first use of searchlights for entertainment, as a cadre of Marines swung multi-colored lights in coordinated patterns at night. Spectacle!
The '06 Quakewas different from previous disasters, as the city had an opportunity to establish building codes for earthquake safety, and reinvent itself as it saw fit. My great-grandfather was a developer on the Van Ness corridor, the new artery from the Bay to City Hall, and built a few of the impressive reinforced-concrete auto dealerships which still stand, although few still sell cars. Our family legacy included the first Ford dealership on the west coast, a lovely 4-storey concrete building with floor-to-ceiling industrial glazing, which I longed to inhabit in my post-college days. But that's another tale.
The PPIE almost finished - note no Golden Gate Bridge - that didn't go up for another 20 years. The bottom left of the photo shows The Zone, and clearly shows the scale of the open-topped Race for Life motordrome - huge! The Tower of Jewels is at the top left...
2015 is the Centennial year for the1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), and lots of attention has been focused on the Expo in local museums and books. The enormous Exposition was built over the Harbor View neighborhood (now called the Marina), which was a squatter's tent camp on swampy marshland, just past the grazing pastures of Cow Hollow. City fathers - notably our incredibly corruptmayor 'Sunny Jim' Rolph- devised the genius plan to fortify the soil of Harbor View, and build an Expo on the site to celebrate the 1913 opening of the Panama Canal. Of course the Expo really celebrated San Francisco itself, and developers subsequently got rich on the land beneath the Expo, after it was torn down in 1916. Hence the Marina district today, which swells with a tech-yuppie influx and is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in town, regardless of its vulnerability to future earthquakes, due to its landfill foundation.
The start of it all - a postcard showing Joe Hall circulating on a 1913 Excelsior 7C-based board tracker, at the 90degree mark in the Race for Life at the 1915 PPIE
While researching an article for The Automobile magazine on two auto races at the PPIE ('Race Around the Rainbow Scintillator', which I'll publish on TheVintagent.com in December), I came across Laura Ackley's excellent book 'Jewel City', which contains a postcard of Joe Hill circulating a Wall of Death on an Excelsior racer - which was news to me! Here was photographic evidence of a a very early Wall right in my home town, in the middle of the PPIE. Time to hit the library...
The exterior of the Race for Life concession in the middle of The Zone at the PPIE - quite a thrill for $0.10. Note the plaster racers at the top of the facade, and the mural showing the cars at vertical. One of the racers stands outside. (Courtesy SF History Center, SF Public Library)
Outside the central fantasy village of the PPIE - the 'Jewel City' of travertine and sparkling lights - was a funfair called The Zone, with dozens of concessions, rides, and attractions. Within The Zone was the Race for Life, which according to fairground plans was a 40' diameter wooden 'two stage' bowl track, over which both cars and motorcycles sped. Photographs show the wooden walls banking in 4 stages, the two widest sections at 78degrees an a fully vertical 90degrees, just below the spectator railing. While the Excelsior postcard is colorized and shows little detail, a never-published photo shows an Indian racer near the top of the Wall...the photo had been mis-labeled as a 'bicycle going at 90 degrees', and hadn't yet been digitized in their archives. No wonder the image hadn't been discovered by the 'Net hounds; it pays to do a little footwork, and there are enormous photo archives at libraries and universities worldwide, waiting to be scanned.
A lovely c.1914 Indian board track racer with all chain drive, a 3-speed gearbox, and no starter pedals, here with its rider, and what looks like a 1913 Stutz 'white squadron' racer on a turntable outside the Race for Life concession.
San Francisco Public Library archives also revealed the facade of the Race for Life, and a rough scale drawing of the layout. Two postcards gave examples of the motorcycles used - an Excelsior ridden by Joe Hall, and an Indian, both ca.1914 machines, and both full-on board track racers. The cars used appear to be c.1913/14 Stutz racers, and advertisements painted around the entry claimed the vehicles hit '100mph! Time it!'...which was of course nearly impossible with a stopwatch. There's no doubt the vehicles used in the Race for Life were capable of such speeds, being 'last year's racers', even though ~30mph is enough to keep a vehicle perpendicular. Still, the thrill a genuine racing car or motorcycle speeding just beneath your feet feels like 'the ton' even today! And counts for the enduring appeal of Walls worldwide.
From the grand plan of the PPIE, giving the scale of the Race for Life within The Zone at the PPIE. The track looks to be 40' diameter, with a canvas roof in case of rain. (Courtesy SF History Center, SF Public Library)
The Wall of Death phenomenon is an outgrowth of board tracks used by bicycles, motorcycles, and cars, although it was cyclists who started canting their tracks to increasingly steep angles in the 1890s, as tracks went indoors to smaller venues, and banking was required. Truly vertical bicycle tracks appeared by around 1900 - these were no longer for competition, and were strictly fairground attractions. Fairground motordromes with cars and motorcycles appeared around 1910, and their tracks grew increasingly steep, with vehicles circulating at 60-70degree banking as a kind of miniature board track race, with coordinated tricks and choreographed 'races'. 1915 is generally cited as the origin date for a truly vertical, motorized Wall of Death,as such an attraction opened on Coney Island that year.
Likely the very same Indian racer as seen above, in circulation. A lovely shot from 1915...[San Francisco Public Library]But not much happens on Coney Island in February, in fact the boardwalk and funfair are seasonal, opening in Spring, while over in California we enjoy mild weather and year-round attractions...like the Race for Life, which opened on February 20th. It seems likely the Race for Life predates the Coney Island attraction, and the documentation I've found from PPIE archives is more extensive than any other Wall of Death evidence from the era. The Race for Life could well predate the Wall of Death, and be the true origin of today's legacy of excellent, traveling Walls, which still thrill spectators at shows around the world.
Inside the Palace of Machinery; a display of Excelsior bicycles and motorcycles...which must have had something to do with the Excelsior later seen on the Race of Life!It wasn't just what was inside the fair, but who came. This is Effie Hotchkiss and her mother Avis, who rode their 3-speed Harley-Davidson Model 11-F across the USA to see the PPIE, the first women to cross the country on a motorcycle.Another of the motorcycles at the PPIE - a rare Dayton sidecar outfit.The PPIE from the other direction, showing the color-coordinated exteriors of the buildings, a pink faux travertine made of a new plaster/marble mix. Bernard Maybecks' Palace of Fine Arts is at right, and the only building still standing from the PPIE.
It might be the most famous motorcycle photograph ever; Rollie Free stretched out over his factory-tuned Vincent Black Shadow at on the Bonneville Salt Flats, clad only in a bathing suit and tennis shoes, squeezing an extra 1mph out of his machine to record 150mph. The situation pictured is outrageous, incredibly dangerous, and impossible to repeat today. It was a time when a man might struggle with the forces of Nature and Time utterly naked, and achieve eternal glory. It was also not long after WW2, when hundreds of thousands died horribly; the antics of a veteran speedman giving 110% to reach his goal probably seemed sensible, when the notion of personal sacrifice in the name of a cause still hung in the air. Today, it's the 'suits' who control the game; the lawyers, insurance adjusters, and bureaucrats, who seek to deny the darkness in our hearts, the crazy erotism of speed, and the invigorating vitality of a little chaos now and then.
The infamous 'bathing suit' photo of Rollie Free doing 150mph on a Vincent Black Shadow in 1948. He claimed stripping to his trunks gave him 2.3mph, enough to reach the magic 150. [Rollie Free collection]That's the poetry of the epic 'bathing suit' photo, but there was a man aboard that Vincent, who had a very long relationship with motorcycles, speed, and even that fully prone riding position. Jerry Hatfield delves into the heart of Rollie Free in his biography 'Flat Out! The Rollie Free Story', filling in the history and character of Free, and the buildup of life events that led to that black streak on the Bonneville salt. Rollie Free had several unique qualities; a fiercely competitive nature (considered 'borderline insane'), a burning desire for vengeance against Harley-Davidson (which reneged on a promise of factory support), and his dogged persistence, especially in the years he spent developing his engine tuning skills. Rollie Free engendered loyalty among his friends, and an incredulous admiration from his enemies. He was the perfect nut-job, just the sort of guy who would strip down to his swimming trunks to squeeze an extra mile per hour on his speed attempt, regardless of the highly abrasive salt bed just below his wheels.
Rollie Free working on the Vincent Black Shadow at Bonneville in 1948 [Rollie Free collection]'Flat Out!' is stuffed with fascinating photos from a well-documented life. That stretched-out riding pose was developed by Free in the 1920's, when he was racing Indians. When Indian no longer developed motorcycles capable of trouncing Harleys, he turned to Vincents as the next likely candidate. His goal was to beat Joe Petrali's record (on a streamlined Knucklehead - 137mph) by a sizable margin, so he began discussions with Philip Vincent on delivering a specially tuned Black Shadow which would do 150mph. Rollie Free had a benefactor, John Edgar, who was the actual owner of the motorcycle, but Free was given carte blanche to make a successful speed record. The infamous motorcycle was afterwards converted to a road machine, albeit in slightly de-tuned form, as Edgar wanted to ride 'the world's fastest standard motorcycle'. Who wouldn't?
John Edgar owned the Vincent Black Shadow which Rollie Free tuned with the help of the Vincent factory. It was essentially the prototype of the Black Lightning model, although Edgar had it de-tuned for road work after the record was taken. [William Edgar Photo, Edgar Motorsport Archive]That 1948 session on the Bonneville Salt Flats may have been Free's most famous escapade, but his decades as a racer, tuner, and dealer of Indians is every bit as compelling as a life story. The 'bathing suit' Vincent is the hook, but there's so much more in 'Flat Out!' worth reading. The Harley vs Indian story is a strong thread; Indian's successes are rarely discussed today, but Free had a lot to do with giving the Motor Co a spanking now and then. The book is packed with great photos you've never seen, and includes an interview with Rollie Free taken 2 months before he died. I first reviewed this book back in 2008, and the book is out of print now, selling for a whopping $500+ on Amazon, but let's hope a little extra attention might bring a second edition from the publisher, Herb Harris. Herb, are you listening?
Free lying prone in 1922 aboard an Indian Scout [Rollie Free collection]In 1930, Free talked his way into the Indy 500 race by loaning the motor from his family Chrysler! The Depression shrank the entry field, and race organizers refunded the $100 entry fee if the car qualified. After tuning the car motor through the night (milling the cylinder head and placing washers under the valve springs), Free qualified the car at 89.369mph, and placed 20th in a field of 38 cars, winning $370. He had zero experience racing on four wheels, but he raced at Indy again in 1947. [Rollie Free collection]A 15-year old William Edgar, son of the Vincent’s owner John Edgar, and now well-known motorsport journalist, aboard the HRD in Hollywood the day before it went to Bonneville. [John Edgar Photo, Edgar Motorsport Archive]Rollie Free as cigar-chomping engine tuner and racer at the Daytona Beach 200 mile race [Rollie Free collection]Stylish! Rollie and Margaret Free with their 1939 Indian 4-cylinder. [Rollie Free collection]<The 1947 Rosamond Dry Lake speed trials, and Fred Stammer's Royal Enfield -JAP special with Mustang tank and a special system for holding down the cylinders! [Rollie Free collection]
Rollie Free 'flat out' (although posed) in 1947, aboard a JAP 'two-of-everything' 8-50 engine slotted into a Royal Enfield Bullet rolling chassis. He rode this beast at 136.62mph at Rosamond Dry Lake, CA. The bike belonged to Fred Stammer; Free was often called upon to tune, then ride (or drive - he raced the Indy 500 three times!) a machine, as he could always extract an extra few mph. [Rollie Free collection]Rollie Free set 2 national Class C (production motorcycle) speed records at Daytona Beach on March 17, 1938, at 111.55mph on a Scout, and 109.65 mph on a Chief. [Rollie Free collection]Rollie Free in 1922 with an ACE four-cylinder machine, the fastest motorcycle in America at the time. "A prone Rollie could coax a good ACE up to 88mph." [Rollie Free collection]Free at top speed on the Vincent - stylishly irresponsible! [Rollie Free collection]Free still wearing his leathers in the 1947 record session at Bonneville...and a helmet. [Rollie Free collection]
The title page gives some idea of the epic scope of the Bonneville landscape. The salt is nearly gone today, and will likely be unrideable in the near future, so escapades like this will recede further into memory...
Paul d'Orléans is the founder of TheVintagent.com. He is an author, photographer, filmmaker, museum curator, event organizer, and public speaker. Check out his Author Page, Instagram, and Facebook.
A day at the races! The inaugural Wheels&Waves California event on California's Central Coast included an open day at the Santa Maria Raceway, open to all comers under a general 'vintage' category, although there were Alta Redshift electric bikes and even a new Indian touring 'bagger' on the track at various times. It was all about fun, although it was a race, with prizes donated by event sponsor Baume&Mercier watches, to the winner of the Vintage class, and the Indian/Roland Sands 'Hooligans' race series run after the Vintage circuits.
Vincent Prat of the Southsiders MC with his 1958 Matchless G12CS, largely original barring the blue metalflake flame paint job(!) and P11 front hub. [MotoTintype.com]As Paul d'Orléans wasn't racing, he had a chance to jump in and out of his 'wet plate van'/darkroom, and shoot a few wet plate/collodion/tintype portraits during a lull in the racing. A full portfolio of MotoTintype portraits of the 'alternative' motorcycle scene can be found on MotoTintype.com.
Strange bedfellows? Not if you're Brat Style! Go and Masumi Takamine's H-D Panhead chopper and 'full patina' postwar Indian Chief. [MotoTintype.com]Bryan Thompson broad-slid his Speedway racer elegantly around the decomposed granite track. [MotoTintype.com]Jérome Allé of the Southsiders MC with the BSA A65 dirt-tracker he bought sight unseen, and worked on for hours when the shiny restoration proved to hide many cut corners! Beware the shiny ones! They haven't been sorted...[MotoTintype.com]
Cheetah from Cheetah Custom Cycles Japan with his exquisitely crafted H-D custom dirt track racer. It started with a WL motor, which was tuned and bronzy cylinder heads added, along with a totally custom chassis fabricated by Cheetah. The triple-stay rear frame was the tip that this was a very special machine, as was the Druid-style forks with hydraulic shocks! [MotoTintype.com]Brian Bent's amazing Ford kookbox carrier and all around groovy 'don't care' wagon. Brian is an event! [MotoTintype.com]
Paul d'Orléans is the founder of TheVintagent.com. He is an author, photographer, filmmaker, museum curator, event organizer, and public speaker. Check out his Author Page, Instagram, and Facebook.
A non-sale; 'Captain America' is withdrawn from my list of the World's Most Expensive Motorcycles
The auction world is abuzz over the recent 'sale' of the 'Captain America' chopper at the Profiles in History auction house last October, claimed at $1.62M, making it the most expensive motorcycle ever to sell at auction, and likely the most expensive motorcycle of all (regardless of rumors of the $1.1M sale of the ex-Rollie Free 'bathing suit' Vincent).
Another much-touted 'sale' which wasn't - Buddy Holly's Ariel Cyclone was NOT, contrary to their press releases, sold for $470k.
Weeks later, it turns out there was no sale; the anonymous 'buyer' backed out after Peter Fonda, who had previously endorsed the machine, sent Tweets the day of the auction casting doubts on the bike's authenticity. The seller, Michael Eisenberg, went to great lengths to bolster the authenticity of 'Captain America', hiring a forensic investigator and even subjecting Dan Haggerty, who restored the bike, to 3 polygraph tests (which he passed). Of course, what was certified by Haggerty as genuine would be the frame, used in the 'B' (or stunt) 'Captain America' built by Larry Marcus and Ben Hardy, as documented in my book 'The Chopper; the Real Story'. The rest of Haggerty's restoration was a reproduction of the 'A' (or hero) bike, long ago stolen and dispersed.
Another non-auction sale; this Winchester was claimed in the press to have sold at auction for $580k, but it wasn't.
Another significant false sale report was Buddy Holly's Ariel Cyclone, widely reported as sold for $470k, but since 're-designated' as a no-sale. Such behavior from auction houses flabberghasts me - what on earth do they think they're up to? The upshot of all this: 'Captain America' is NOT #1; it's off my list of the 'World's Most Expensive Motorcycles'. Activity like this Profiles in History sale, and earlier this year, the sham 'sale' of a 1910 Winchester at Worldwide Auctioneers, cast doubt on the reliability of auction houses and their press releases, or at least, releases from THESE auction houses. Caveat Emptor, baby.
The attempted sale of Michael Eisenberg's 'Captain America' chopper prompted considerable interest in the film's history, the bike, and the back story of the bikes used in Easy Rider. As I'd just researched this very subject for my book 'The Chopper; the Real Story' (2015; Gestalten), and have what I believe is a fairly complete picture of the origins and build of 'Captain America', I suppose that makes me an expert on the subject!
Cliff 'Soney' Vaughs on his white chopper on Malibu Beach, 1972: Cliff died in 2016. [Elliott Gold]National Public Radio producer Tom Dreisbach assembled a story on 'Easy Rider' and its impact. I was interviewed in the studios of KQED in San Francisco, which was a novel experience for me. I'm regularly interviewed on radio and for podcasts, but have never before been on All Things Considered!
Larry Marcus building a white chopper in 1972: Larry died in 2017. [Larry Marcus]The story is available on a podcast at the NPR site, and a transcript is reproduced below. It's not the complete story of the 'Easy Rider' choppers - their origins, construction, and subsequent controversies - you'll have to buy my book to read that, as it's a long complicated saga. I had the pleasure, by coincidence the same day as the NPR broadcast, of meeting Larry Marcus in Oregon last week; Larry is a professional mechanic, and actually built the 'B' bikes for Easy Rider, in the backyard of the home he shared with Cliff Vaughs in 1967/8. The spot he chose to meet (an Indian Casino) was, by greater coincidence, having a small chopper show at the time, which included a pair of replicas of the Easy Rider choppers. Strange and stranger, but there you go - the life of the Vintagent is never without surprises.
The auction house Profiles In History sits in a short, average-looking office building in Calabasas, California. But it holds some of the most famous relics in movie history.
SABRINA PROPPER: Do you know what this is? This is the "Indiana Jones" whip.
RATH: Sabrina Propper works at the auction house.
PROPPER: Oh, this is the "Citizen Kane" jacket worn by Orson Welles.
RATH: There are Wolverine's claws from "X-Men," a crown from "Game Of Thrones," and next Saturday, Profiles In History will sell Lot 1121, what the auction house says is the last remaining authentic motorcycle from the 1969 film "Easy Rider" -
Cliff 'Soney' Vaughs captured on wet plate in 2014. [MotoTintype](SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BORN TO BE WILD")
RATH: - The "Captain America" motorcycle that Peter Fonda rode in the film with the American flag paint job and the long front end. The bike is like the movie - legendary. But for many years the history of who built it has been largely unknown. NPR's Tom Dreisbach reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "EASY RIDER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: What do you say we take a look at these super machines we've been hearing so much about?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: Let's get it on.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE)
TOM DREISBACH, BYLINE: The "Captain America" bike was not simply taken out of a showroom and in front of the camera. It was handmade - what's known as a chopper.
D'ORLEANS: It's a type of customized motorcycle usually defined by a stretched-out wheelbase and pulled back handlebars and a wild paint job. I mean, those are sort of the cliche indicators.
DREISBACH: That's Paul d'Orleans. He's an expert on vintage motorcycles and the author of "The Chopper: The Real Story." He says the bikes in "Easy Rider" embodied chopper culture of the 1960s and took it mainstream.
Larry Marcus in 2014, when we met, and happened on a replica 'Captain America' chopper [Paul d'Orléans]D'ORLEANS: They did more to popularize choppers around the world than any other film or any other motorcycle. I mean, suddenly people were building choppers in Czechoslovakia or Russia or China or Japan.
DREISBACH: But d'Orleans says while the two "Easy Rider" bikes became icons, the names of the builders remained obscure.
D'ORLEANS: Most choppers - it's associated with who built this because they are an artistic creation. And curiously, the "Easy Rider" bikes were never associated with any particular builder.
DREISBACH: Here's where the story gets complicated and conflicted. In the past few years, with some work by d'Orleans and others, two names emerged more publicly - there's Ben Hardy, a prominent African-American motorcycle builder in Los Angeles and Clifford Vaughs, a black civil-rights activist, motorcyclist and bike builder.
Hardy died in 1994. This past week, I reached Clifford Vaughs, now 77 years old. Vaughs says he met Peter Fonda while working for an LA radio station. Fonda had been arrested for marijuana possession and Vaughs was sent to cover the court proceedings. They got to talking.
CLIFFORD VAUGHS: And so we talked about motorcycles. He asked me what I was doing. I said I have a hobby on the side. I build motorcycles.
DREISBACH: Sometime after, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda came over to Vaughs' place in West Hollywood. They talked about making a motorcycle movie.
VAUGHS: I said well, I can build whatever we need for the film right here in my place.
The 'Captain America' chopper as capture on wet plate, Mulholland Road 2014. [MotoTintype]DREISBACH: That movie would become "Easy Rider." Vaughs maintains he came up with the bike's signature elements and coordinated their construction, which also involved Ben Hardy and others. Larry Marcus is a mechanic. He lived with Vaughs at the time and worked on the bikes.
LARRY MARCUS: OK, Cliff really came up with the design for both motorcycles.
DREISBACH: Before his death in 2010, director and star Dennis Hopper also credited Vaughs. In the past, Peter Fonda has said he himself designed the bikes. Fonda's publicist said that he was unavailable for comment on this story. Vaughs and others were fired early on in the film production, and his name never appeared in the credits. But Vaughs also believes the contribution of African-Americans has been conspicuously left out of the story of "Easy Rider."
VAUGHS: And really those bikes, I mean, we talk about iconic. They are definitely iconic, but yet, the participation of blacks completely suppressed. And I say suppressed because no one talks about it.
DREISBACH: Now 45 years after the film's release, Vaughs has still never seen the film. When I asked him why, he responded simply.
VAUGHS: What for?
DREISBACH: Vaughs says he's troubled that the film depicts '60s bike culture but has no African-American characters. At the time, he belonged to The Chosen Few, a motorcycle club that was racially integrated. That reality doesn't appear on screen. The Profiles In History auction house notes the role of Hardy and Vaughs in building the bikes, but acquisitions manager Brian Chanes says what happened to them is sadly typical in Hollywood.
BRIAN CHANES: The guys that are back there doing the welding, the guys that are doing the set building that are really masters of their craft, they don't get the props. You know, that's it, they don't get the notoriety, unfortunately.
DREISBACH: And Clifford Vaughs still has mixed feelings about this very short chapter in a long life.
VAUGHS: What can I say? Simply, I'm a little miffed about this, but there's nothing I can do.
DREISBACH: He says he's not looking for credit. Vaughs says he knows the work he did in his backyard all those years ago. Tom Dreisbach, NPR News.
Why the most luxurious motorcycle ever built has 3 wheels.
The last of the species died so long ago we’ve forgotten it once existed; the luxury motorcycle. An oxymoron today, those two words once sat as comfortably together as cigarette and holder, or top and hat. In this century one finds so-called luxury items advertised everywhere, which are likely mass-produced in charmless foreign factories. While ‘finished’ by artisans in their nominal home country, such items retain a mere thread of bespoke in our outsourced world; they are de-luxe, the light of tradition and exquisite hand craftsmanship having nearly been extinguished.
The Brough Superior-Austin 4-cylinder 3-wheeler with Touring sidecar - not a four-wheeler under the law, as wheel centers within 24" were considered a single wheel in the British vehicle code. [Paul d'Orléans]But in the 1920s and 30s, if one was flush, remarkable treasures were built by fantastically talented hands. In the motorcycle game, nobody could equal the products of George Brough (pronounced bruff). Magical showman, conjurer of wheeled dreams, bold motorbiking adopter of the Rolls Royce name, George was cut from cloth made nowhere today. As inheritor of a motorcycle factory bearing his name (should he choose), young George rode his father’s excellent Broughs in trials all over Britain in the ‘Noughts and ‘Teens, proving himself a skilled handler of the breed. His father William designed and built his own machines in their entirety, gaining a reputation for solid excellence, and George was on hand to prove they worked, as roving factory rider and charismatic brand ambassador.
The 1930 Brough Superior catalog announced the new model as the 'Straight Four'; it was also called the BS4, or the Brough-Austin 4. [Hockenheim Museum Archive]While young George gathered trophies around the country, he also collected ideas for ‘his’ generation of manufacturing. Motorcycles in those early days had frames like metal gates and tanks like mailboxes, all squared up, tall, and awkward. ‘Teens machines had yet to shed their vestigal pedals, like froglets their tails, and were visibly just heavy bicycles with motors. George envisioned motorcycles with curves like women, swelling chests up front and tapering waists, hips that promised a memorable ride, and engine performance that delivered. He sketched out designs during WW1, hardening an ambition to make the fastest and most elegant motorcycle in the world.
The Brough Superior special catalog for the BS4, showing the faired-in radiators on the Show model, the only one so built. The other 9 examples had two radiators detached from the fuel tank. [Hockenheim Museum Archive]Back home in 1919, George’s sketches for a superelegant superbike met stony refusal from pére Brough, so George built his dream down the street in Nottingham. His prototype was gorgeous, with a curvaceous fuel tank in lustrous nickel plate that straddled the top frame tube – the first ‘saddle tank’. The engine was the most powerful he could buy, sourced from the J.A. Prestwich Co (JAP); their ‘ninety bore’ engine, a v-twin with advanced overhead valves and a capacity of 1,082ccs. Casting around for a name, a friend suggested ‘Superior’, as it so clearly was; thus the ‘Brough Superior’ was born, the greatest paternal fuck-off in motoring history. “I suppose that makes mine Brough Inferior?” his father queried. No answer was required. Amazingly, the pair remained on speaking terms, his father carrying on building plain old Broughs through 1926.
What freaked the squares; the twin rear wheels of the BS4. One was ordered solo by journalist Hubert Chantry, who'd ridden the Show bike in an off-road trial in solo form. He was notorious for riding his solo - in reverse - around Picadilly circus! [Bonhams photo]George proved a genius at motorcycle design, and one other thing above all – marketing. He competed his machines only in trials and races he was most likely to win, arriving on an always-sparkling machine (he’d quietly accompany them on a train), dressed impeccably in his signature perfectly cocked flat cap (also his design). His gleaming bikes and gregarious personality meant press coverage far out of proportion to his production, but his bona fides were written in sprints. He’d overseen development of a very special JAP sidevalve 990cc v-twin racer called ‘Spit and Polish’, its flywheel and chassis pared to an absolute minimum, with the all-up weight under 180lbs. ‘Spit and Polish’ won 51 of 52 races entered in the early 1920s, crossing the line first even in that ‘lost’ race, although George had been ejected into the gravel many yards prior. Subsequent months of skin grafts in those pre-penicillin days put an end to his competition career, but not his enthusiasm.
The catalog shows clearly the spine frame and extensions holding the final drive box in place - very similar to the Windhoff 4. One rear wheel has been removed to show the bevel drive, and the central propshaft inherited from the car design. The water-cooled Austin 7 motor was enlarged and used a 'sports' cylinder head of aluminum - some had twin carbs for extra power. [Hockenheim Museum Archive]A 1923 press review of the Brough Superior SS80, a ‘super sports’ v-twin guaranteed to have exceeded 80mph at Brooklands, proclaimed it ‘The Rolls Royce of Motorcycles’. George sprinkled that phrase liberally on his advertising ever after, claiming he’d invited Crewe’s lawyer to visit after the inevitable cease-and-desist order. On the appointed day, every worker wore starched collars, white gloves, and brand-new aprons while carefully fitting-up gleaming SS80s. The boys at Rolls never bothered their two-wheeled kin again.
A fantastic cutaway drawing from The MotorCycle in 1930, showing full details of the BS4. Literally a lost art for motorcycles. [The MotorCycle]Brough’s masterpiece, though, was the SS100 model of 1924, built around the latest JAP V-twin racing engine, the legendary KTOR overhead-valve 990cc ‘dog ear’ motor. Guaranteed to have exceeded 100mph at Brooklands, nothing on two wheels could match it in style and speed. After creating the SS100, George could have retired his pencil, as the SS100, besides being the most expensive and fastest motorcycle in the world, was by general acclamation the most beautiful as well. It remains so today, barring the fastest bit; examples even in pieces sell for over £400,000, and no doubt it will soon become the first Million-dollar road bike.
A period press or factory photo, when distracting backgrounds were hand-painted out of the picture. This is not the first, Show model, but a later production bike with separate radiators and no deep valance over the rear wheels. [Hockenheim Museum Archive]But George still had a trick up his sleeve; a motorcycle so beguilingly lovely and silky-smooth it might be a luxury car. He’d long considered the four-cylinder engine ideal for a motorcycle, and in 1927 built a unique V-4, with angled pairs of cylinders flanking his famous round-nosed fuel tank. It was displayed under glass at the 1927 Olympia Motorcycle Show, mostly because he’d disastrously broken the crankshaft on a test run; the new crankcase was painted wood! In 1929 he exhibited a new B-S with an inline 4-cylinder engine from the Swiss firm Motosacoche, which had achingly good lines, but needed expensive development. Everyone lusted for these machines, but only prototypes were built - both survive today, and a talented fanboy machinist (at 75) even recreated the crankcase for the V-4. After this pair, Brough searched for a small, reliable 4-cylinder engine, and chose the most prosaic donor of all – the Austin 7.
The prosaic Austin Seven, perhaps the unlikeliest source for the heart of 'The Emperor of Motorcycles'. [Hockenheim Museum Archive]The little Austin 747cc sidevalve 4 was water-cooled, and came with a 3-speed gearbox (plus reverse). But the driveshaft emerges on the center-line of the motor; fine for a car, tough for a bike. Rather than design a new gearbox with a shaft or chain beside the rear wheel, Brough had the crazy inspiration to keep the central driveshaft, and place a wheel on either side. A pair of close-coupled rear wheels could be driven by a central drive box, and under English law, if the rear wheel centers were within 24”, it was legally considered a motorcycle. Thus the ‘3-wheeled Brough Superior’ was born, and became legend. Catalogued in 1932 as the ‘Straight Four’ or ‘BS4’, the Brough Superior-Austin Four caused pandemonium when revealed at the 1931 Olympia Motorcycle Show. There had never been a motorcycle like it, and it remains unique, but it wasn’t just the extra wheel freaking out Depression-era showgoers, it was the sheer audacious luxury of the thing. Brough Superior ‘show models’ were always extra-bling, and dazzlingly lit on plinths, but the Straight Four was over the top. Up front were a pair of chromed honeycomb radiators with rounded housings which flowed into the B-S trademark bulbous fuel tank. The mudguards were deeply skirted front and rear, the back pair having matched valances curving over the rear brakes, with thin chromium strips outlining their edges. A sidecar in the shape of a small launch was bolted beside, its body black but outlined entirely with chrome accents, and a red leather upholstered seat. It was, and is, a thing of beauty.
An overhead view; while the BS4 was largest motorcycle produced in Britain at the time, it was still slim and light; even with a sidecar the overall weight was around 600lbs - inconceivably light by today's standards. [Bonhams photo]With its sidecar, the Straight Four was a four-wheeled motorcycle, so was it a car? Brough Superior built cars too, with Hudson motors, but the ‘BS4’ was so much better. Motorcycles are dangerous, exposing riders to the elements and other people’s stupidity; a healthy dash of bravery is required. More, it is the second most intimate of machines (the first resting in milady’s bedside drawer), with the rider straddling a mechanical beast, sensitive to its every message for the sake of his or her own pleasure, and avoidance of mortality. A luxury motorcycle therefore combines bravery, skill, danger, and exquisite artistry; it is the sum and acme of Romantic impulses. George Brough leveraged all this to sell his machines, but the Straight Four was different; the combination of its outrageous design with equally audacious styling was a one-two punch to the psyche. The motorcycle’s perfume of danger, mixed with the skill required to master this entirely new combination, and the sheer gorgeous expense of the thing, coalesced to make the Straight Four the Emperor of Motorcycles.
The actual Show model as seen today, on The Vintagent's Road Test of the machine, which is in perfect running condition, and as elegant a motorcycle as you'll find. [Paul d'Orléans]Ten were built. Nine survive. The destroyed example has since been re-created, by the then-80-year-old fanboy who fixed the V-4. One was recently rediscovered, half-buried in detritus in an old man’s shed, kept company with 8 other Brough Superiors in equally shocking condition, guarded by his ever-present shotgun. His estate is a cause of recent celebration, and his rusty, incomplete Straight Four sold at the 2016 Bonhams Stafford Spring sale for nearly $500k. But what is it like to ride one? George was challenged at the ’31 Show, ‘it surely couldn’t be ridden solo?’, to which he replied indeed, and loaned the Show bike, sans launch, for pressman Hubert Chantry to ride in the London-Edinburgh Trial that December. After writing his report, he promptly ordered his own –solo- Straight Four, which he famously rode backwards around Picadilly Circus. The rusty barn-find auctioned was that very machine.
The 'Bodmin Moor' BS4, the ex-Hubert Chantry machine, which will surely be revived given the world's interest in this model. It sold for $481,682 [Bonhams photo]I’ve ridden the 1931 Show BS4 [see the Road Test here], which is not rusty. I first met her in the 1980s, in the collection of the world’s largest ‘privateer’ amphetamine producer, but the BS4 didn’t follow him to prison in ‘89. She recently re-appeared in the harem of a German collector of impeccable taste, who invited me to make her acquaintance. After sampling the cosseted joy of its launch sidecar, I was given the reins, solo. Half an hour on the BS4 was like sex with Catherine Deneuve in a Cannes dressing room; over too quickly, but savored ever after. It was indeed the most elegant thing on two, three, or four wheels, and I’ve ridden everything, and driven a lot. Silky smooth, quiet but not too, with a chuffing from its open carburetor bellmouths, and proper mechanical noises while twisting the throttle, clutching and shifting, and of course testing reverse. For 30 minutes, I was a mortal in the realm of the gods. And of course, being mortal, I uploaded it on YouTube.
What could be better than a Brough Superior-Austin 4-cylinder 3-wheeler? Why two, of course! [Paul d'Orléans]
Motorcycle Photography. What do those words conjure? Shots of choppers or sportbikes, hot babes or dudes lofting wheels – we’ve seen a lot of it. It’s rare to find a new and unique vision within the crowded field of photography these days, but an artist friend forwarded the Instagram feed of Rita Minissi (@thingspowerthemselves) and we knew something was different. Intrigue turned to excitement as we pored over her feed, then her website of the same name; here was a rare thing – a totally new way of looking at motorcycles and riders. We were instant fans.
Rita’s work isn't easily pigeonholed; it sometimes appears sexy, sometimes Sci-Fi or S&M, and sometimes raw and animal. She often photographs herself, in different guises, with identity-obscuring masks, wigs, and outfits. Her photos are less erotic than botanical, like variations on a theme of 'orchid', reminiscent of Georgia O'Keefe. Like O'Keefe, Minissi doesn't strive for the sexual - there's no nudity or sly exposure - but her work fundamentally explores the complicated universe of Eros. This reveals the viewer's relationship to the erotic, as Rita's not explaining anything. She embraces the 'different and contradictory manifestations of identity' in exploring 'how one portray's one's self to others,' as well as our determination to resist any sense of universality in our self-conception. The creatures in her photographs are often unidentifiable in being masked (or helmeted), but are nonetheless full of individuality and character, with unexplained motivations and circumstances.
Rita was commissioned in 2015 to photograph Revival Cycles’ custom Ducati ‘J63’ in NYC. The Vintagent's Paul d’Orléans has ridden and written about the J63 for Cycle World; the bike is a compelling, beautiful thing, and a prime example of the mystical Silver Machine. It was a delight to discover Rita grappling with the J63's otherworldliness in a new way; as a counterpart to her black leather alien alter ego. We’ve previously described leather catsuits as ‘poking a gloved finger into some ancient part of men’s brains’; in Rita's lens they become critical props in a drama we don’t understand; is this riding? Is it ritual? Is this motorcycling in another dimension?
One might think getting struck in the face by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan would end one’s life, or career as a war correspondent, or even one’s nerve, but that wasn’t how things played out with Carmen Gentile. The grenade didn’t explode, but broke his skull and took out an eye, which left him wearing a swashbuckling leather eye patch when we interviewed him over Skype, along with his photojournalist partner Nish Nalbandian. Gentile recounts the whole story in his book ‘Kissed by the Taliban: My Unrequited Love of Reporting and the Wrong Woman.'
The engine block that flew past Nish's head, from an Islamic State car bomb. [Nish Nalbandian]Nish Nalbandian had his own brush with a near-fatal attack not long ago in Mosul, when a suicide car bomb hurtled an engine block just past his head, killing an Iraqi Special Forces soldier instantly. Before working in Iraq, Nish covered the Syrian civil war, publishing 'A Whole World Blind: War and Life in Northern Syria' (2016). He ultimately decided to leave Syria due to the increasing danger of kidnapping, and becoming a gruesome sideshow for the Islamic State. As you'll read, Nish and Carmen aren't typical war correspondents, but fell into the job sideways, after finding it was 'something they could do.'
The first picture of the Ural sidecar outfit that Nish and Carmen saw...[Nish Nalbandian]All this excellent journalism wasn't the reason for our interview: it was ‘the caper'. The strangest current-interest war story involving a motorcycle in recent memory. It sounds straightforward in the abstract; two journalists working in a foreign country, both motorcyclists, decide to buy a motorcycle/sidecar rig for a little fun while they’re in town. That town happened to be Mosul, Iraq, and the time (Jan. 2017) was during a mighty street battle between combined Iraqi/American forces and Islamic State fighters for control of the city. The motorcycle - a Ural with sidecar - had itself been victim of a mortar attack, but like our heroes, had survived.
Firas' nephew and friends push the Ural to Firas' shop for repairs. [Nish Nalbandian]We had to find out more, so arranged an Skype interview with Carmen Gentile and Nish Nalbandian. They're both highly accomplished, widely published journalists, covering complex and difficult armed conflicts. They're also dedicated motorcyclists, who see moto-journalism as a possible route out of war reporting, and their Mosul Moto Caper is a first step in a new direction for both men.
Firas removing the old gas tank that had been crushed by falling concrete during a mortar attack. [Nish Nalbandian]The following is an edited transcript of our 4-way conversation, with Nish, Carmen, Paul d'Orléans and Jean-Philippe Defaut.
Paul d’Orléans: So, WTF guys, you’re war correspondents, and your day job is hanging out in gnarly areas of death and destruction. And you’re motorcyclists.
Carmen Gentile: That makes us sound way cooler than we are.
Pd’O: Oh no, you guys are pretty effing cool. Or crazy, I’m not sure. How many times have you been to Iraq, and how long were you there this time?
Carmen Gentile sits on the Ural for the first time, as a local Mosul men watch. In striped shirt is Talib, a mechanic who rode the bike out of Mosul, in order to get past the many military checkpoints (without any papers). [Nish Nalbandian]CG: I’ve been going to Iraq since 2005, not steadily, but a month or two at a time; in the past 12 years I’ve probably been there 18 months total.
Pd’O: That's a tour of duty.
CG: I’ve spent more time in Afghanistan than Iraq; we were only there for a couple of weeks last January. Nish has been there a lot more than me, shadowing a Special Forces operation.
Pd’O: What were you doing, Nish?
Household members view the Ural in the courtyard of the owner's home. [Nish Nalbandian]NN: I was initially there for the Associated Press, then decided to follow a battalion of Iraqi Special Forces, in order to make a photo book about them. I shot about enough to do a book, but things happened and I decided not to go back to the front lines. An ISIS suicide car bomb went off right in front of me, about 25 meters away. There was 2 seconds warning, and it killed one guy beside me, wounded 3 others, and threw me into a wall.
That’s when I said ‘I want to do motorcycle stuff.’
Pd’O: Is that when a car’s engine block flew through the air and hit an American soldier?
NN: Yeah, it flew right by my head.
Pd’O: That sounds pretty intense. How did you get into war correspondence?
The first military Ural Nish saw in Mosul, in January 2017, that piqued his interest in finding one of his own. [Nish Nalbandian]CG: By chance. I was in Haiti in 2004 after the coup that ousted Aristide; I’d been based in Brazil and was asked to follow the collapse of the government and the chaos. To this day, it’s some of the worst stuff I’ve ever seen; there were bodies in the street and close fighting, a lot of shooting. I didn’t know what I was getting into.
It turned out to be something I was able to do.
I subsequently followed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pd’O: Something you realized you were able to do – that’s interesting. Nish?
NN: In 2011 I rode to Ushuiah [the southernmost tip of South America – ed], and treated the trip like I was photojournalist. I’d also been in Syria for a motorcycle trip before the revolution, and I couldn’t find some of my friends, so I decided to visit the refugee camps in Turkey. Sort of like Carmen said, it turned out to be something I could do, and was good at.
Firas hand-fabricating brackets and adapters, as there are few parts available off the shelf. Note the MZ ETZ250 in the background - exactly the bike Paul d'Orléans rode through the Eastern Bloc in 1987! [Nish Nalbandian]Pd’O: Will you carry on war reporting?
CG: I won’t say I’ll never go back, but I don’t anticipate doing more. My wife and I make grisly calculations at times; is this something that’s worth your life? What do you sacrifice for your career? What’s the price tag for your life?
Pd’O: I think we motorcyclists make those calculations as well; it’s an inherently dangerous activity. Riding in a war zone certainly ramps up that danger!
CG: Yeah, we caught some grief for not wearing helmets in our photos. We discussed this on the outskirts of Mosul; we wear helmets in combat situations but they won’t help in a motorcycle accident.
If we got into an accident on the bike in Mosul, that would be the least of our worries!
People don’t wear motorcycle helmets in Iraq. We didn’t as we didn’t want to stick out too much, but folks back home, seeing our photos, give us grief.
Pd’O: It seems to me those people are looking at the wrong risks you're taking!
Taleb, our mechanic, and Ahmed, an off duty cop, ride the bike out of Mosul to get past military checkpoints. [Nish Nalbandian]CG: We’re always weighing the pros and cons of things, how risky they are.
NN: We were thinking about ISIS sleeper cells! In the last 6 months in East Mosul they’ve had 60 bombings. We purposely weren’t wearing helmets as we didn’t want anyone to notice us. We already stand out enough, with tattoos on our arms, as Americans.
Pd’O: And which helmet would you wear – the one that protects against bullets or road rash?
CG:
We’re carving out new territory here, making it up as we go, and doing the best we can.
Pd’O: So, is anyone riding a bike regularly in Mosul?
As soon as he started the Ural (first kick!), Firas surprised Nish and Carmen with a display of sidecar prowess on the busy streets outside his Mosul shop. [Nish Nalbandian]NN: Not for fun, but there are tons of bikes there, mostly small displacement ones, and scooters; the only big bikes are these Urals used by the military and police. About two thousand of them were imported between 2000-2005 under the Oil For Food program. Russia participated in the UN sanctions, and were allowed to import bikes.
Pd’O: That wasn’t long before the American-led invasion.
CG: The invasion was March 2003, and leave it to the Russians, they kept importing bikes for another 2 years during the war.
Pd’O: Where’s the bike now, and is it officially yours?
Local Iraqis watch as one of Firas' workers installs a new ignition coil. The blue tank was a handy used spare. [Nish Nalbandian]NN: It’s at a friend’s house in Erbil in northern Iraq; we’re getting quotes to ship it to the States.
Pd’O: To the states? Does either of you spend times in the US? Carmen aren’t you living in Croatia, and Nish you’re in Turkey?
NN: I’m thinking I’ll move back to the States; I’m in Denver for a month now. It’s no problem to get the Ural to the US.
Pd’O: And there’s always White Power protests over here to cover – if you need action!
CG: That’s funny – we’ve been talking about America-related stories, there are tons of stories to do on a motorcycle, getting to the heart of America as another journalism enterprise.
Pd’O: What’s next for you, Nish?
NN: I’d like to move into moto-journalism, and make a niche in that industry.
I’d prefer not to go back into a war zone.
Pd’O: You’re not planning to collect the bike in person?
Carmen getting the bike refuelled halfway to Erbil. After being stuck at a checkpoint for three hours, they rode half the distance in the dark, a sketchy proposition given the bike's crappy headlight. The arabic writing on the sidecar is a proverb that translates as: "Betraying me will not make me cry, being in the company of a coward will."[Nish Nalbandian]NN: I’d go back to Iraq, but to the north, where it's stable. I have friends there who invited me to go fishing and camping.
Pd’O: That’s not how we think of Iraq – fishing and camping.
NN: The reality is in all these places, people have to live, and if there’s not an actual war going on in your city, you can do these things. The Kurdish areas are secure.
Pd’O: Ted Simon wrote in ‘Jupiter’s Travels’ that he preferred visiting countries at war - avoiding the conflict areas - as there were no tourists! He’s changed his tune since then, as Western civilians are targets now.
Jean-Pierre Defaut: I like the notion of a normal life in countries at war. What are the roads like in Iraq?
NN: Some of Iraq is really nice, in the high desert, and the sunset the night we rode the Ural was really beautiful. Around Erbil there are 4-lane highways in great shape.
CG: Nish and I both grew up in Pennsylvania, he in East with nicer roads, me in West.
In western PA some of the roads are worse than in Iraq.
Carmen riding the Ural around Erbil in the twilight; the landscape is high desert, but he mountains are farther north and east. [Nish Nalbandian]
Pd’O: So are some roads in rural California. Are there places in Iraq that motorcyclists would want to ride through when things stabilize?
CG: I think you could definitely ride in the Kurdish areas, starting in Erbil and going east into Sulaymaniyah in the mountains where Nish is talking about going camping. Absolutely, it’s a beautiful area.
I was there in 2008 in the height of the US-led war, and it was gorgeous; pine-covered mountain slopes, snow capped peaks, valleys with rivers running through them.
NN: And the food’s good!
Pd’O: What do the Iraqis think about Americans now? Nobody’s talking about anything but ISIS here. How are things 15 years after the invasion?
NN: There’s Iraqi political views, how they see our system and the invasion, but then there’s the personal situation. They’ve watched a lot of American TV and movies, and people can differentiate between imperialist aggression and individual Americans.
CG:
I tend to stay away from broad questions about ‘what do all Iraqis think about Americans’ because I haven’t asked every Iraqi!
Pd’O: Touché!
CG: Sometimes we’re trying to tell one person’s story, and from there the reader can extrapolate. Nish and I have talked a lot about resilience – that people can survive the most indescribable horrors. And they go on – after eastern Mosul was liberated, people were out on the street, drinking tea, shooting the shit with their friends. I’d be curled up in a ball on a therapists’ couch, but they keep going!
NN: And doing things like putting up billboards!
Pd’O: Really, what’s the option – do you stop living or carry on?
CG: We had a really good fixer, Sangar, who helped us get through numerous checkpoints on the way from Mosul to Erbil; he had to talk us through with soldiers who were looking at us like WTF? There’s nothing in the manual for this.
Pd’O: You had no papers for the bike at all?
CG: Nothing.
Pd’O: That's what makes your Ural story a caper – find a bike in the chaos of a war zone. How did this begin?
NN: I was there in January, and went to a police HQ and there was a Ural and sidecar parked. It was in really good shape, so I talked to my fixer to see if I could buy one. He said we could find one for $500. That’s how it started.
Pd’O: There’s no Craiglist in Mosul. How did you find it?
NN: It’s easy to find a Ural, but they’re all owned by the police and military. Finding a civilian model was like finding a needle in a haystack. Even the one we found… if you scratch the surface you might find military paint underneath. We paid $300 for the bike, $100 to grease palms to make it happen, and $100 to get it fixed. It wasn’t an exorbitant amount of money.
CG: The bike did have a piece of a concrete wall fall on the original gas tank, after a mortar blast! The house had been taken over by ISIS and was a target. I don’t know if any of your bikes have taken that kind of a hit? Our mechanic Firas Assadi rustled up another tank from a junk pile. It’s really cool, because with that blue tank and the rest of the bike red...
It almost looks like a Russian version of Captain America’s bike!
Carmen riding the Ural around Erbil. With its blue tank and red bodywork, he thinks "it almost looks like a Russian version of Captain America's bike!' [Nish Nalbandian]
Pd’O: That certainly resonates with American politics this week! I’m intrigued by your mechanic; what’s his story?
CG: Firas knew the bike well, as he knew the previous owner, and had been riding it for years. It took him less than 3 hours to get the Ural running; then he started doing sidecar wheelies up and down this really busy street in Mosul! He knew the bike like the back of his hand. He’d been riding them for years, his father and grandfather owned Urals. If you’d taken the bike to a shop in the US and asked them to get it running in 3 hours, they’d have laughed.
NN: He found some other carbs to adapt to make the bike run, made spacers so they fit, and it started first kick!
Pd’O: Sounds like the impromptu mechanicing you’d find in India – old guys with dirt floor shops who’ll rebuild your bike in a day. Without the veneer of professionalism, you can find true mechanics who can fix anything. Is there any kind of pleasure riding in Iraq, now or in the past?
CG: Oh yeah, during my time in Baghdad I’ve seen Harleys, there are even riders with tricked-out bikes. There’s a drift-car culture in Baghdad, and along with that goes a sportbike culture.
NN: There’s a Harley club in Baghdad.
The object for their affection; a 2004 Ural sidecar outfit, slightly damaged by the war.[Nish Nalbandian]JP: What’ the price of fuel?
CG: Oh its super cheap, 50,000dinars per gallon! Pennies on the dollar compared to the US.
It’s a petrol state – don’t drop a match on the ground!
Pd’O: What’s your plan now, gents?
CG: Now we’ve got a taste for this kind of storytelling, combining our work as journalists with stories about motorcycles and places to ride. Next we’ll tour through the Balkans as journalists; 20 years ago, the area was in a war similar to what Iraq’s is going through, and people haven’t heard much about it since then.
NN: The idea is choosing places that have current affairs significance, with good riding roads too.
Pd’O: I have a friend, Doug Wothke, with a motorcycle hotel in Bulgaria; he speaks highly of the Balkans for riding.
CG: It’s really quite incredible. I don’t know everything about the region, even though my wife is Croatian; she says I should do more work around here than the Middle East! There are places you can rent bikes, and tour companies, and we’ve picked out spots with great riding terrain, and spots pertaining to recent history (the war between Serbia and Croatia, and then in Bosnia). That will make a good story, the terrain is stunning and varied in the Balkans.
It was only 20 years ago these guys were at each other’s throats.
Pd’O: It gives hope for places like Iraq - that it’s possible to recover.
Paul d'Orléans interviewing Carmen Gentile and Nish Nalbandian over Skype. [JP Defaut]CG: The course of history is long and winding, we’re in a period of civility in the USA, but their history goes back thousands of years, and there’ve been periods of bloodshed.
Pd’O: That sounds like everywhere actually.
CG: I’d like this story to make the world seem more accessible to riders, that all over the world you can find a place to rent bikes, like El Salvador, New Zealand, here in the Balkans. It’s not difficult.
Pd’O: In 1987, I rode with my girlfriend, Denise Leitzel, from London to the Soviet border on MZ 250s, and I found going places people (at least Americans) don’t know can be really rewarding. It’s kind of special - doing the other thing - and feels fresh. Americans don’t travel that easily, we barely even travel through Mexico, because we hear stories of violence.
NN: But the food is good!
Pd’O: And that’s a priority! The roads might be crap, but as long as the scenery and the food are good, I’ll go!
Carmen Gentile is a writer and former war correspondent, whose book 'Blindsided by the Taliban' documents his own story of losing an eye to a Taliban-fired rocket-propelled grenade while documenting the war in Afghanistan.
In 1925 through 1927, the Rudge-Whitworth company introduced a line of touring accessories which have never been equaled by any other motorcycle manufacturer, even in these days of super-luxo three-wheel touring rigs with 1600cc flat-six engines, stereos, and GPS. Specifically, Rudge introduced a full touring caravan, complete with dining table and beds, which could be towed behind one of their new '4-valve, 4-speed' models. Added to this, one could order a sidecar chassis carrying a quick-detachable canoe! This was no 'miniature' boat, as some manufacturers produced in the 1950's for sidecar haulage; the Rudge canoe was fully 14 feet long. Yet, the company advertised that the "Canoe sidecar can be turned round in a circle of 20 feet diameter, which very few motor cars are capable of doing. To river lovers it gives great mobility and makes it possible to become acquainted with half the rivers in the country."
From the Salter Brothers archive, the original (only?) Rudge canoe, built at their facility.
To demonstrate the soundness of the whole combination (with the canoe, at least), Rudge Managing Director John Pugh arranged for G.E. 'Ernie' Nott, factory tester and racer, to enter such an outfit in the Birmingham Motorcycle Club's 'Victory Trial' on March 7, 1925. Nott was a tough character, with a nose like a prize fighter, and was accustomed to the pounding of Brookland's pavement. Nott won a Bronze medal in the Trial, with a little help from other Rudge team members on the really tight bits. The three fellow teamsters rode solo Rudges, and won a Gold and two Silvers as well, but clearly had time to help "manhandle the outfit sufficiently for him [Nott] to negotiate the more difficult parts of the course" [The Story of Rudge, Hartley, 1985]. Not many trials courses allow for a twenty foot turning radius!
Ernie Nott's Bronze medal in the 1925 Victory Trial is crowed over in Rudge advertising - it remains a unique achievement!
Remarkably the Canoe was offered with either the 350cc ('10hp' - £58) or 500cc ('15hp' - £64.6) capacity machine, with Electric Lighting Set via an ML 'Maglita' an extra £5. Salter Brothers of Folly Bridge, Oxford sent along a photo of Rudge and canoe/sidecar from their files; it's possibly the very same canoe used in the Victory Trial, shown at the Works before delivery to Rudge-Whitworth. As far as we know, this photograph was never previously published, and is the best shot of the canoe itself, from the archives of the manufacturer. The construction of the boat is clear, with steam-bent ribs and mahogany planking, held together with brass nails, and varnished to a high gloss. Salter Bros is still manufacturing wooden 'Canadian' canoes such as this; thus, if one is so inclined, a brand-new Rudge canoe might be arranged with the original manufacturer! Food for thought... we're huge fans of the things.
The Rudge caravan outside the factory walls, demonstrated by ladies.
Another delightful photo of the canoe outfit shows 'captain' Ernie Nott at the helm, in far less arduous circumstances than the Victory trial - chauffering two Flappers to an open-water picnic. The ladies' cloche hats and the Chinese paper parasol exemplify the period perfectly, although their thin silk dresses make for risky motorcycle gear. Ernie is taking no chances, and wearing a hearty Mackintosh! He looks well amused by the scenario, in any case. Note the thick canvas webbing which secures the canoe to the sidecar frame - the same system as on the Salter Bros. outfit. I think we can confidently assume that these canoes are one and the same, given the overall shape of the boat and construction details... and may well have been the ONLY Rudge canoe built, as there is some doubt whether any were actually sold.
Ernie Nott escorting two flappers in his Rudge canoe outfit, in 1927
The Rudge Caravan was introduced for the 1927 model range, further exploring this uncharted territory for touring motorcycles. A complete outfit was offered, with Rudge 500cc ohv motorcycle and 'Semi-Sports' sidecar, plus the trailer, for £136.50. The Caravan itself was 7'3" (2.23m) long 4'10" (1.5m) wide, and 4'7" (1.4m) high. Inside were two small beds, a table, storage lockers, etc. Weight of the caravan was 285lbs, about the same as the solo motorcycle. It was recommended that cooking and washing occur outside of the trailer - cooking especially due to fire danger. A commercial version of the trailer was available, and were in use as late as 1944 delivering milk by the Coventry Co-op. When parked, the owner's manual recommended the outfit's tow-bar to be 'lashed to the nearest hedge, and the rear corners fitted with ropes and pegged down', with attention paid to the prevailing winds and likely course of the sun.
From the 'Rudge Book of the Road', a family sidecarring together, the original moto-tourists.
The all-up weight with motorcycle, sidecar, Caravan, rider, and any gear included must have exceeded 1000lbs, on a motorcycle still relying on 'dummy rim' external-shoe brakes, front and rear. Rudge was a pioneer in linked braking systems, i.e. the front brake was activated along with the rear when the brake pedal was depressed, and with the Caravan, two further brakes on the trailer wheels were activated as well. Yet the 'dummy rim' brakes used during those years by Rudge are marginal in normal use, very dodgy when wet, and impossible under a half-ton of load.
'Take your hotel with you! The Rudge Caravan off the beaten track.'
Anent this, a humorous story is included in Reynolds' 'Don't Trudge It, Rudge It' (Haynes, '77); "Tyrell Smith was riding the [outfit with trailer] and together they were cruising at about 40mph when a constable stepped out from the side of the road to halt them. Tyrell hit the brakes hard but there was no chance of stopping the outfit in a hurry and it sailed on past the policemen and eventually stopped 100 yards further down the road. Seeing the problem, Ernie Nott [who was riding a spare racing bike behind Smith] pulled up beside the policeman to show that he interpreted the signal to apply to him. The policeman was not so readily convinced and he set off down the road, after the oufit, to accuse the rider of having no brakes. When the officer tried the time honoured method of testing the brakes, by pushing the oufit with the brakes applied, he couldn't move it an inch, which is not surprising considering the weight it was carrying. He therefore let the riders go with a warning about being a bit more observant in the future. It was a good thing that he knew nothing of the effect of inertia!"
Suggestions on how to camp, what to look for, maps, how to pack, and maintenance tips are all included in the 'Rudge Book of the Road', among the most charming books of the Vintage era
In 1927, Rudge-Whitworth published the 'Rudge Book of the Road', which explains in detail their philosophy of touring, camping, and competing on your Rudge motorcycle. This book is a gem, and quite a few copies are still floating around. If you're a fan of 1920's vernacular writing, this little 150-page booklet tickles the reader with an optimistic yes-you-can! style, and is illustrated with adorable Art Deco end pages and illustrations, as well as photographs of Rudges in action, weather advice with cloud identification, maintenance tips, mileage charts, a spot of Latin tutoring, and a full 25-page atlas of Britain at the back. It is achingly good reading for a nostalgist; you'll want to find the nearest Rudge dealer - today! - and go explore the halcyon lanes of a world gone by.
'It's only a penny to Twickenham Town' - Old Song. A wonderfully evocative photo.
The Vintagent's obituary of art critic Robert Hughes brought responses from far and wide, some from unexpected quarters. One raised our eyebrows though... a roundabout connection, via an arc of sky-borne bullets, between Hughes, Lothar von Richthofen (the Red Baron's brother), and 1911 Isle of Man TT winner Oliver Godfrey.
Oliver Godfrey, winner of the 1911 Isle of Man TT, with his Indian racer
A memorial speech about Robert Hughes in the Australian Parliament (by Parliamentarian Malcolm Turnbull) revealed a deeper story of the Hughes family, which included his father Geoffrey Forrest Hughes, an Australian ace fighter pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during WW1. The elder Hughes had gained fame by shooting down Lothar von Richthofen, less famous than his brother Manfred, but still plenty deadly, with 40 'kills' to his credit. Lothar flew in his elder brother Manfred's Jasta 11 fighter group (the 'Flying Circus'), the unit which decimated 75% of the Royal Flying Corps' planes in 1916.
Geoffrey Forrest Hughes (right) speaking with Prince Albert (Left) in 1927
One of these RFC planes, a Martinsyde 'Elephant' bomber (Martinsyde made motorcycles too), was crewed by none other than Oliver Godfrey, who had joined the RFC in early 1916, before new 'hunter' squadrons were organized by Oswald Boelcke of the German Imperial Army Air Service. Only 5 years prior, Godfrey headed the Indian 1-2-3 victory at the 1911 Isle of Man TT, and became a hero for racing, but not shooting down planes. Thus are the connections between motorcyclists revealed; Robert Hughes, the brilliant Australian critic on his Honda CB750, and Oliver Godfrey, the taciturn English TT winner on his Indian, via a pair of German aristocrat brothers with a talent for flying, in what was once the most likely opportunity for young men to visit far-off lands...War.
Art critic Robert Hughes and his Honda CB750 ca. 1972Lothar von Richthofen, brother of the 'Red Baron', and an ace flyer, with 40 'kills'
Malian photographer Malick Sidibé died at 80 years old...ish - he could never remember whether he was born in 1935 or '36. Born into a shepherding family in Soloba, he showed an early talent for art, but it wasn't until he was 10 years old that he began an education - when the family could release him from watching goats, presumably because a younger sibling could to take his place! His home was colonial French Sudan, and by 16 he'd earned a spot at the École des Artisans Soudanaise Bamako, the capital. By the late 1950s, he apprenticed with society portrait photographer Gérard Guillat (in his Photo Service Boutique), bicycling between night clubs and hot spots in the evenings with a Kodak Brownie camera. Such was his gift, by 1962 he'd set up his own photographic studio, gaining the nickname 'the eye of Bamako' for his compelling portraits of Malian hipster nightlife. The dandies, the discos, the families with their treasured motorcycles, brimmed with life after Mali gained independence from France in 1960, and Sidibé captured the vibe.
1962 - a well-off Malian couple shows off their Honda CA72 Dream. (c.Malick Sidibé)
His work was 'discovered' by the Anglo/European gallery and museum cabal in the late 1990s, and a flood of solo exhibitions and retrospectives quickly followed; first at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago - 1996), then the Centre d'Art Contemporain (Geneva- 2000), Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (Rome - 2001), etc. In the 20 years since that first Chicago exhibit, at least 9 books were published on his decades of photography, and his work can be found on postcards and Pinterest sites. The exposure doesn't detract from the magic of his work, which sympathetically captures the vibrant energy and aesthetic genius of the Malian people. It was the mopeds, motorcycles, and scooters that caught my eye of course - "there's always a motorcycle" should be my website footer - but it's the two wheels in context that matters, with snappy young gents, courting lovers, or families posing with this important, treasured possession, the real and symbolic statement of Mobility, as Africa took over the reins to its own future.
A recent photo of Malick Sidibé. (c.Jennifer Morgan Davis)
In 2010, Sidibé told London's Guardian that a good photographer required “talent to observe, and to know what you want,” but equally to be approachable and friendly. “I believe with my heart and soul in the power of the image, but you also have to be sociable. I’m lucky. It’s in my nature. It’s a world, someone’s face. When I capture it, I see the future of the world.” Vale, Malick.
Three Malian 'sapeurs' (fashionable young gents) with their chic late-'50s Motobecane Mobylette mopeds, c.1962 (c.Malick Sidibé)The fabrics! Three youngsters with an East German Simson SR-2 'Star' 50cc motorcycle (c.Malick Sidibé)As the '60s moved into the '70s, you bet those flares got wider, and I see platform shoes peeking out...(c.Malick Sidibé)An early 1970s Vespa with a familiar backdrop of locally-produced cloth. While these shots are in black/white, no doubt the fabric included the vibrant oranges, blues, and greens typical of Mali. (c.Malick Sidibé)One of my favorites; traditional garb and the all-important 1980s boom box...(c.Malick Sidibé)A young couple dancing at a nightclub in Bamako, Mali, c.1962. (c.Malick Sidibé)
London artist Hassan Hajjaj was born in Morocco, and returns regularly to photograph the vibrant street culture of his native city of Marrakech. He's gained a reputation as the 'Andy Warhol of Marrakech' for his artistic mashups of trans-national brand logos and traditional Arabic clothing and settings. Like Warhol, he enjoys sticking a finger in our expectations, while exposing our prejudices and vulnerabilities to propaganda. His photographic series 'Kesh Angels' , ('Kesh being an abbreviation of Marrakesh), generated significant media attention, and led to a full-length film, 'Karima - A Day on the Life of a Henna Girl' (the trailer can be seen below).
A border of soup cans - shades of Warhol - mixed with Lolita's heart glasses and a polka-dot veil...this is not your mother's burqa!
When it debuted in 2011, news outlets breathlessly reviewed the exhibit, but inaccurately described the subject as 'Moroccan motorcycle girl gangs!' The truth according to Hajjaj is more prosaic: "Most of the bikes [in the photos] are their own bikes, Marrakech is really a bike city, everybody rides them - young kids, men, women. It's a feast for the eyes, you'll see a woman riding with a sheep behind her and her husband behind that, or 2 guys with a big sheet of glass between them. An inspiration for me was Kerima, a 3rd generation henna painter in the main square, who rides her bike back and forth to work every day. She speaks 4 or 5 languages, works 8-10 hours a day, raises two kids, and built her own house."
Serious sttitude, with a backdrop of brilliant north African color, and a border of Fanta cans...
Hajjaj riffs on multiple layers of Moroccan culture, from traditional African portrait studios (such as Malick Sidibe and Jean Depara) to Pop art use of soda cans and extensive appropriation of designer logos on definitely non-designer clothing. His mashup of bad-girl attitude with luxury-branding on their veils and djeballah (head-to-toe coverings) certainly pokes fun at stereotypes of Islamic women, as well as the current trend of women riders self-promoting on Instagram. What does it take for a girl to be cool? In Marrakech, just as in LA, it's all about a motorcycle.
Nike's swoosh blends seamlessly with Arabic-lettered LegosRock the Casbah? The 'Kesh Angels say yes.
The trailer for 'Karima - A Day on the Life of a Henna Girl'
The 70th anniversary of the Ferrari marque is an opportune time to remind the world that Enzo Ferrari was a motorcyclist first, and fielded a motorcycle racing team in the early years of Scuderia Ferrari. It should come as no surprise to learn that Enzo Ferrari was a motorcycle enthusiast in his youth, and reputedly owned an FN 4-cylinder and a Henderson 4-cylinder motorcycle. The Ferrari family had a flourishing metalworks business when Enzo was young, but WW1 saw the conscription and death of both his father and brother. After being conscripted himself, as a mule farrier, the flu epidemic of 1918 nearly killed him; he returned home, and was forced to quit school, taking a job as a metalworker for a local fire department. He soon joined a small company, CMN, which converted war-surplus vehicles to civilian use. This is probably where he acquired his Henderson, as Italy was an ally of the US in WW1, and US forces were notorious for abandoning equipment - even Hendersons!
The Scuderia Ferrari race team in 1932; three 'TT Replica' Rudges, two with disc rear wheel covers - very chic. Enzo stands 3rd from the right, in the jaunty cap.
As test driver for CMN, he developed a taste for competition, and by 1919 was racing cars at events like the Targa Florio, doing well enough to secure a job at Alfa Romeo, where his courageous driving style won him a spot on the Works Alfa team. Alas, the passionate Italian had a crisis of confidence before his first real GP (the French of 1926), and bowed out of the race, and the team. He remained at Alfas though, competing in minor events and doing well, but becoming more interested in management of his Alfa Romeo dealership in Modena, and his new family.
Aldo Pigorini after winning the 1934 International Speed Trophy in Rome on a 350cc Rudge, with very early streamlining. This is the machine on which he won the 350cc Italian Championship that year.
In 1929, he formed Scuderia Ferrari as a scheme to manage Alfa Romeo racing at a time when Alfa temporarily disbanded its Works team. Scuderia pilots were given full mechanical support by the factory, plus delivery of their cars to races, and sponsorship of Pirelli tires, Shell oil, and Bosch electrics. Ferrari immediately had 50 full- and part-time members, a veritable Alfa army, which did very well at races, especially when another motorcyclist, Tazio Nuvolari (below, on bike), joined the team.
Tazio Nuvolari (seated) with the Moto Bianchi team in the late 1920s, with their very fast Frecchia Celeste (Blue Arrow) DOHC racers
Nuvolari had been racing with Bianchi for several years, and was exceptionally successful with their groundbreaking 'Frecchia Celeste' (Blue Arrow) model, one of the earliest double-overhead camshaft racing machines. Introduced in 1925, the 348cc machine was technically a decade ahead of the competition, using a shaft drive to power the cambox, and gears to spin the cams. A proper oil pump (at a time when most bikes used total-loss oiling) and unit-construction engine/gearbox with gear primary drive put the Bianchi on top of Italian racing through 1930, and 'Nivola' gained the 350cc European Championship on this machine in 1925 (there being no World Championship series until 1949). Nuvolari raced both cars and motorcycles from 1925, joining Scuderia Ferrari in 1929. By 1930, he had given up racing his beloved Bianchis to concentrate on the far more lucrative sport of automobile racing, for Alfa Romeo. He is considered among the Eternals of racing on two and four wheels, a champion at both (in rare company with Achille Varzi, Alberto Ascari, and John Surtees).
A young Tazio Nuvolari wearing a Norton sweater!
In 1932, Scuderia Ferrari, now an extremely successful racing team, employed similar tactics - supplying and delivering bikes, offering full support and entry fees - to create a motorcycle racing division. Enzo Ferrari felt motorcycle racing was an excellent training ground for racing drivers, as the two most successful members of Scuderia, Achille Varzi (who raced Sunbeams, above) and Tazio Nuvolari, were champion motorcyclists before turning to four wheels. It may have been hubristic to think an endless supply of such drivers as Varzi and Nuvolari can be cultivated to win Grands Prix in cars by motorcycle training, but it had been a happy fishing pond thus far.
Victory! The Scuderia Ferrari team after a win. Enzo stands just right of the Rudge. The rider is Aldrighetti.
Not that the 'Scuderia Moto' was unsuccessful at motorcycle racing! They purchased two of the best available racing marques (and I use this term advisedly - there were amazing racing motorcycles at Moto Guzzi and Bianchi, but they were not for sale!) of 1932, Norton 'Internationals' and Rudge 'TT Replicas'. Norton was at the beginning of a 30-year winning streak, and Rudge was at the peak of their racing success in 350cc and 500cc races all over Europe and England, a moment which passed very quickly, as the Depression curtailed any further expenditure in racing development beyond their pushrod four-valve engine.
One of the Scuderia Ferrari Rudge-Whitworth racers; note the 'Prancing Horse' logo on the front fender
The choice of the Rudge 'TT Replica' for Scuderia Ferrari may well involve the use of Rudge-Whitworth wheels on Alfa Romeo racing cars (see Tazio Nuvolari atop a pair of Rudge wheels below). As noted in a previous post, Rudge-Whitworth invented a wheel mounting system using splines on a hollow axle, and quick-change central 'spinner' to hold the wheel - allowing very fast wheel changes during a race. In 1922, Carlo Borrani took out a license to manufacture Rudge wheels in Milan, and soon many sporting and racing cars used Rudge wheels (Alfa Romeo, Mercedez Benz, Auto Union, Lancia, etc).
1932 - The Scuderia Ferrari motorcycle team: Mario Ghersi (1) near Enzo Ferrari, Franco Severi (2), Giordano Aldrighetti (3).
Thus, with his employment at the Alfa Romeo factory, Enzo Ferrari had much contact with Rudge personnel...and the racing team jerseys certainly advertised 'Rudge Whitworth Coventry', as well as sponsor Pirelli tires, so it was clear a commercial tie-in with Rudge was involved...the team did NOT wear Scuderia Ferrari sweaters! [There are accounts which claim Ferrari had an interest in a Rudge motorcycle dealership, but I've yet to confirm this.]
Inside the Scuderia Ferrari warehouse, with a lineup of ready Rudge racers!
The use of English racing motorcycles for an Italian team rankled the press and populace of Italy, as they were justifiably proud of their technically superior home products...and let's be clear here, it was not the English, Americans, Germans, French, or Belgians who produced dohc four-cylinder racers, sohc twin-cylinder racers, and sohc and dohc singles, supercharged and normally aspirated, by 1932! It was Moto Guzzi, Benelli, and Gilera who made by far the most advanced racing motorcycles during the 1930s. Thus, it was a bit of a shock for the Italian populace, ardent supporters of all things racing, that Ferrari chose English machines to race. But, Scuderia Ferrari was not (yet!) a manufacturer of racing machinery, and was limited to over-the-counter racers on two wheels.
The DOHC Mignon racer considered by Enzo Ferrari to replace the Rudge, but too much development was required. [Moto Italiane]But the use of English machines wasn't assured. Enzo Ferrari had become used to winning races, and his motorcycling team needed to win. He was also as patriotic as the next Italian, and did in fact seek Italian machinery to race for his team. Local to Ferrari's home in Modena was the Mignon factory, headed by the talented engineer Vittorio Guerzoni. Mignon in 1931 was developing an advanced chain-driven overhead camshaft (and dohc too) single-cylinder racer, with unit-construction engine and four-speed gearbox, which looked very promising. In tests though, the machine was clearly no match for the English hardware which were currently winning races. That year, Ferrari approached Guerzoni with the idea of collaborating to produce a new engine for the Scuderia. A racing Norton 'International' was purchased and disassembled, and Guerzoni, with his engineer Vittorio Bellentani (who later built the very first Ferrari racing car - the '815' - in 1940) set about copying what he felt was the best of the design, and created a shaft-and-bevel single cylinder ohc engine more along the lines of the Norton. In tests it too proved no match for the Norton, and the project was abandoned. Enzo Ferrari found greater pride in victory than nationalism.
The Ferrari team at rest; note the 'Prancing Horses' on the fenders
The motorcycle division of Scuderia Ferrari shortly equaled the success of its four-wheeled stablemates, winning and placing with stunning frequency. Rider Giordano Aldrighetti had particular success in 1932, winning almost every 250cc and 350cc event entered, including a Gold Medal in the '32 ISDT. Ferrari moved him up to 500cc for 1933, and he won the Italian championship. Aldo Pigorini won the 350cc championship in 1934. Mario Ghersi and Piero Taruffi (above, on the Norton he raced for SF) became very well-known riders in international competition. It is possible the Ferrari team didn't pay well, as the personnel changed dramatically in its 3 years. Aldrighetti was the only team member for all 3 years.
Rudges at the Races
Scuderia Ferrari was likely the only large-scale 'private' motorcycle racing team in the world, until the 1950s. Fielding a racing team is an expensive proposition even for the manufacturers themselves, and it is equally likely that the automotive half of SF was subsidizing motorcycle racing, as sponsorship deals were simply not lucrative enough in the early 1930s, in the midst of a worldwide Depression. There is an implication Enzo Ferrari didn't aggressively pay his riders, as the best (Taruffi, Ghersi) were quickly lured away by other race teams. Finally, the Rudge 'TT Replica', on which the team was solely dependent by 1934, was no longer as competitive at international-level racing; 1930 was the last year a 'pushrod' engine won the Isle of Man Senior TT - a Rudge ridden by Wal Handley - after this, the writing was on the wall for 'knitting needles' pushing valves.
Achille Varzi on a 1928 Sunbeam TT90 racer, before racing for Scuderia Ferrari, then turning to auto racing
Enzo Ferrari rarely spoke or wrote about his motorcycle racing team after building his own cars, and rumors have swirled for years, given the rarity of published accounts of the team. It is probably his skill at team management and talent spotting which made the team so successful. His only peer in the motorcycling world was Joe Craig at Norton - equally autocratic, aloof, difficult, and completely focused on victory.
Another glimpse inside the fantastic Scuderia Ferrari workshops in Modena
It takes a keen eye on these photographs, but it's just possible to see the 'prancing horse' logo on the front mudguards of the motorcycles. Here's how Enzo explained the origin of that immortal logo:
"The horse was painted on the fuselage of the fighter plane of Francesco Baracca — a heroic airman of the first world war. In ’23, I met count Enrico Baracca, the hero’s father, and then his mother, countess Paulina, who said to me one day, ‘Ferrari, put my son’s prancing horse on your cars. It will bring you good luck’. The horse was, and still is, black, and I added the canary yellow background which is the colour of Modena."
Francsesco Baracca with his WW1 fighter plane and the original 'Prancing Horse' [Wikipedia]
Photo and information sources:
Moto Italiane: I primi 50 anni, 1895-1945. Ing. Stefano Milani, 1995, Motoni, Pavia.
Jake De Rosier was, by all accounts, America's first professional motorcycle racer, and one of the most famous motorcyclists in the world after beating Charlie Collier's Matchless in a best-of-3 match race at Brooklands in 1911, on his track-racing Indian. De Rosier was born in Quebec in 1880, but moved to Massachusetts with his family by 1984. He started racing bicycles in 1894, and was declared a 'professional' soon after making 'too much money' winning Amateur championships. He switched to riding the new 'pacer' motorcycles in 1898, for aviation pioneer and auto racer Henri Fournier. These early pacers were notoriously unreliable, but provided an added level of excitement at hugely popular Velodrome races with their speed, noise, and new-fangled technical innovation. These were the first motorized vehicles many spectators had ever seen, and certainly the first motorcycles. De Rosier was a true pioneer of the sport, and rode Fournier's machine (imported from France) at America's first motor-paced bicycle event, at the Waltham Massachussets track in 1898.
Champion du Monde! Jake De Rosier at the Brooklands track in Britain, after defeating Charlie Collier in a best-of-3 match race, making him something like the first World Champion.
In 1901 De Rosier was pacing American bicycle champion George Nelson, and met George Hendee, who'd brought a Hendee Special pacer to the race, with an engine by Oscar Hedstrom. The Indian was actually a reliable motorcycle, chiefly because Oscar Hedstrom had designed the first proper carburetor in the world. De Rosier switched to pacing for Hedstrom, and was among the very first employee of Indian. He didn't stay an employee long, but kept a close relationship with Indian, which led to the first professional racing contract in the industry in 1905, with Indian to race their 'motocycles'. De Rosier shortly became the most successful motorcycle racer in the world, and by 1910 was paid to 'inaugurate' many of Jack Prince's new invention, an expansion of the wooden Velodromes he'd built and promoted around the USA - the Board Track.
Jake De Rosier was in Los Angeles in April 1910 for the grand opening of Jack Prince's first-ever Board Track, at Playa del Rey, called the Los Angeles Motordrome. The Motordrome became for a short time (1910-1913) one of the world's most important speed venues, on par with Indianapolis Motor Speedway (est.1909 - De Rosier rode at the opening) and Brooklands (est. 1907 - De Rosier was victorious there in 1911). Many world speed records were set at the track, car and motorcycle, and by 1911 De Rosier held every speed record classified by the FAM (Federation of American Motorcyclists), earned mostly on Prince's Board Tracks around the country.
Indian's first purpose-built track racer of 1907, the 'Torpedo Tank' or 'Monkey on a Stick' racer, and their first v-twin
Motorcycle racing wasn't an easy job, though, and De Rosier's list of broken bones, burns, lost skin, and concussions fills a long list in profiles of the man during his career. They speak of dagger-like 4" splinters from track boards piercing his skin, split shin bones wired together on site with no anesthetic (or penicillin), and far worse. De Rosier wasn't immune from confrontations with the law, either, and was jailed for a night in New York City after a shoving match with a policeman at a race in Madison Square Garden. Jake De Rosier was physically diminutive, but hard as nails, and never stepped down from a fight.
The Playa Del Rey Board Track - the Los Angeles Motordrome, the first in the USA
De Rosier was a America's first superstar motorcycle racer by 1910, in the physical condition of the toughest street brawler, but was reported to be surprisingly sweet in person. Undoubtedly he was quite a star with the ladies as well, and must have found excellent company while touring the country as a motorsports champion. Unfortunately, in April 1910 the girl he chose for 2 nights of fun turned out to be a beautiful 16 year old from a well-to-do family (Miss Pearl Clark), who'd escaped from her bedroom window to run away with him! The family was panicked, as the girl didn't leave a note, and after finally calling home to tell her she was fine, they promptly had her arrested for 'incorrigible behavior'. The press was keenly interested in a sex scandal with a star athlete - just like today in fact - and young Miss Pearl obliged them with a rather frank interview from the Detention Home, and was obligingly photographed in her most stylish outfit. It was a coming out party in a modern vein, with Pearl assuming the 'no press is bad press' attitude with a distinctly modern LA flavor. That she'd spent 2 nights with De Rosier was scandal enough, but on 'confirmation of her story' by a doctor (ie, checking her virginity status), her mother fainted, and wanted nothing more to do with the girl, who remained unrepentant. Today of course, minors are protected from press accounts, and Miss Pearl would never have been mentioned by name, or address! Read the account below, from the Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1910:
Miss Pearl Clark, teen runaway, fashion plate, scandal sheet princess, and for 2 Burgundy-fueled nights, Jake De Rosier's sweetheart. [Los Angeles Times]
Hidden Love Her Undoing
- Pretty Girl Elopes With a Motorcycle Ride
- Miss Clark is Under Arrest; De Rosier Escapes
- Mother Faints When She Is Told the Truth
Pining for the excitement of the outer world, the glare of electrics, the charm of the café orchestras and the taste of rare wines and rich viands, Pearl Clark, 16 years of age, of No.2716 South Grand avenue, escaped from the quiet surroundings of her home, Wednesday night, and plunged into the life she thought she wanted. The plunge was brief. When the girl came to realize just what a gay life means, she found it very cold and cheerless. She hurried to a telephone to let her mother know of her whereabouts. As a result, Pearl is in the Detention Home on a charge of incorrigibility, and her alleged lover, Jake De Rosier, a French motorcycle racer, is sought for by detectives on criminal charges.
The case sounded from first reports like a pretty romance. Robbed of its romantic features, which, in the light of the girl’s acts and her rebellious spirit, are no longer to be considered. The episode reverts to the old story of a headstrong child, unappreciateiv of a quiet, pretty home, and desirous of showing how superior she was to her surroundings by taking the bit in her teeth and bolting. Miss Clark felt her first taste of annoyance yesterday afternoon, when photographers snapped her picture. Her demure attitude vanished for the moment and she gritted her pretty white teeth.
Her Opportunities
Miss Clark arrived from Boise about seven months ago. Her parents too up their residence on South Grand Avenue. The girl was surrounded by the best influences possible. Sh was given the advantage of piano and voice culture. She had plenty of time for reading and painting. Her friends were not questioned so long as they were boys of good families and apparently of good habits. She was carefully watched whenever she went out at night and her parents invariably accompanied her. But like many cases of the kind the girl tired of the quiet, peaceful life. Although she had many friends, she managed to make the acquaintance of De Rosier ‘on the side’. The French racer appealed to her as a voice from the outer world, the world she longed to see and master. Her family knew nothing of the girl’s attachment for De Rosier for she was very sly and quiet about it, but yesterday she admitted she had been meeting him clandestinely almost from her first month’s stay in this city.
Wednesday she decided that the step she wanted to take could no longer be put off. She had to take the plunge into the giddy whirly. She had a date with De Rosier, according to her confession yesterday, which was in brief as follows:
Girl’s Confession
"He made an appointment with me and sent a messenger to the house. Later he came out on a motorcycle and handed me a quart bottle of champagne. I called him up and later arranged to meet him about 10 o’clock that night. I went to my room as usual and kept quiet until everyone was asleep and then I dressed myself. I did not intend to stay very long, and only wore such clothes as were necessary and didn’t take any of my other things. I got out the windowand dropped to the lawn and slipped out to Grand avenue and then went north until I met De Rosier. He took me to the Bristol Café where we had supper and drank quite a lot of Burgundy. In fact, we drank so much that we didn’t know much what we were doing. I didn’t, at any rate. We left there about midnight and De Rosier took me to his apartments at the Percival Hotel on South Hill street. We stayed there all night and Thursday afternoon went down to Venice and had dinner there with lots of Burgundy on the side and spent the night at the Windward Hotel. This morning, Jake brought me to Lot Angeles and left me and I telephoned my mother not to worry.”
Jake De Rosier was a wanted man in April 1910, for 'corrupting the morals' of an underage girl. He later confessed 'she seemed older than that', which may have kept him out of jail - I can find no evidence of a legal conclusion to this story. Perhaps, as is typical even today with star athletes, his promoters kept him from behind bars... [Los Angeles Times]The first intimation that the girl might be with De Rosier came from a telephone number she had pencilied on the wall alongside the telephone, and officers watched De Rosier’s rooms Thursday night, but he did not return.
Telephones Mother
Yesterday when Miss Clark telephoned from the American Drug Company’s storon in the Pacific Electric building, she told her mother not to worry, that she was safe and would return home. Her mother asked her to remain at the drug store until she could get downtown, that she wanted to talk the affair over. The girl consented. Mrs. Clark then called up police headquarters and Detective McNamara was dispatched to the drug store and there arrested her daughter, and marched her up to the Police Station.
Mrs. Clark arrived there a short time later. She refused to believe parts of her daughter’s statement, hoping against hope that the girl might be telling a falsehood. When informed by examining surgeons that the physical condition of the girl bore out certain features of her confession, Mrs. Clark fainted and was revived with difficulty. She left the hospital and returned home without again speaking to her daughter.
Miss Clark showed little remorse. She admitted that she had not enjoyed her escapade as much as she expected, but that she would like to have a couple of bottles of Burgundy to take to the Detention Home with her. The girl, to all outward appearances, is refined and modest. She is of a beautiful blonde type, dressed in the height of fashion, and with a trick of casting down her eyes while speaking.
Jake De Rosier is being earnestly sought and detectives state that a charge will be filed against hime, which, if proved to conviction, will prevent his breaking any more young hearts with his daring, death-challenging stunts for some time to come.
One of my favorite early Akira Kurosawa films is a B&W scandal called ‘High and Low’. The Japanese Economic Miracle was in full swing in the 1950s, and before he rode off into the Samurai sunset, Kurosawa explored the deep hypocrisy characterizing that period of extraordinary growth. Enormous fortunes were fertilized by a government so bent on economic progress it happily shielded the obvious corruption and environmental damage, accompanied by stagnation of the working classes. Today he could make the same film in China.
A still from Akira Kurosawa's beautifully shot 'High and Low', a huge influence on cinematographers in subsequent decades
I’ve camped out in Las Vegas every January for many years, watching with vested interest the classic motorcycle auctions. It’s my fetish to keep track of oldbike price fluctuations, which has not been inexorably upward. I’ve watched major price drops of bellweather machines (say, Vincent twins) after the real estate crash of ’89, the dot com bust of 2000, and the Great Recession of 2008. The price of a good Black Shadow has plummeted from $100k to $30k before, and it can happen again. Regardless, the general trend is upwards, which might seem a ‘natural’ fact, or a product of inflation, but placing financial value on items with no functional value is anything but natural. Looking at the trends in other collectibles markets, there’s no reason to believe the bike you paid x for this year, will guaranteed be worth x++ in 10 years. It’s a reasonable gamble, but when I start seeing books like ‘Investing in Collector Cars’ on trade stands at Rétromobile (the PreWarCar booth no less!), I catch a whiff of 2007, a heady if slightly rotten perfume.
Buddies Andy and Jean-Michel collaborated in the late 1980s; both their work has skyrocketed in value, becoming safe havens for cash in 'bonded warehouse' storage facilities. Will top-tier motorcycles see the same fate?
Looking at the fine art market, you’d think anyone with a few million to stash would scour the land for spare Warhols and Basquiats, since there are so many, and they fetch so very much. But dropping one’s binoculars to look at the broader art scene, it’s clear only a tiny slice of that pie is thriving (the ‘smart buys’), while the rest of the market grows stale. It’s an all-or-nothing gamble in the money game, if that’s why you’re buying or making art... the very worst reason to buy or make it, of course. The antiques business is seeing a similar shrink/swell of different eras. It’s well known the old American furniture market, once reliable and considered a safe investment, has seen values drop shockingly in the past 10 years, by as much as 80%. Friends at Christie's note with something like despair the prospect of their specialty being merged with more successful groups, or dropped entirely. At Bonhams, the car and motorcycle departments are going gangbusters, keeping the whole company buoyant, while the art, antiques, and jewelry sales are more lackluster, barring a few stars. It’s the same story at other auction houses, and retail establishments.
A reception for Conrad Leach's exhibit 'Paradise Lost' at the Gauntlett Gallery in London
My friend Richard used to run a fantastic man-cave of a shop selling cool old gear – automotive prototype models, 1930s cocktail sets meant for us while driving, great paintings of Spitfires and Nortons. He’s shuttered the shop, complaining ‘there’s no middle anymore’; either clients wanted the $100k thing, or the $1k thing, with almost no sales between. Since he needed that middle to survive, he was sunk, but his sanguine opinion was the business simply reflected the loss of a prosperous middle class; his customers were either ‘making it’ big time, or watching their coins carefully while saddled with a mortgage etc. Other dealers have much the same experience today, and so it was in Las Vegas this January.
The 1950 Vincent 'White Shadow' in Chinese Red, which fetched $345k at Bonhams in Las Vegas, January 2016. Tie a string to it and float away...
With over 1000 old motorcycles on offer, there was something for everyone; from a MTT Y2k jet bike to a lineup of nicely unrestored British twins. But ‘everyone’ fell into one of two camps; those with $50k and up to spend (repeatedly), and those looking for a bargain to take home. Many of the high rollers were dealers, buying for wealthy clients or hoping for a quick resale. It was clear the same small group of bidder numbers dominated the proceedings, peppered by a miscellany of one-shot bidders - the ones who looked genuinely excited when they won a bike, usually for well under $30k. It was, to quote Kurosawa, a High and Low affair; individual collectors with money to buy a nice bike, and a cadre (1% anyone?) of deep-pockets bidders. This is a new development of an old story (called Capitalism), but it’s important to note the old bike market was never like this before, being a fairly level playing field of genuine enthusiasts in the past. I suppose investors are enthusiasts too, if only for more money, which is the worst reason to buy old motorcycles. I’ve said it before; bikes make lousy sculptures, as the magic is the riding. Keeping a bike static misses the whole point.
Hanging out with a miniature Indian Board Track racer...which supposedly works! Adorable, and it beat the full-scale replicas is price! Go thisaway, replicators...
Paul d'Orléans is the founder of TheVintagent.com. He is an author, photographer, filmmaker, museum curator, event organizer, and public speaker. Check out his Author Page, Instagram, and Facebook.
There's a compelling photo of B.S. Allen from 1923 that I shared on myFacebook site, standing beside a replica ofGeorge Brough's infamous sprinter 'Old Bill'. I hadn't realized Brough Superior built replicas of George's personal testbed/winning sprinter, but of course, GB would sell a bike to anyone willing to pay, in any specification they chose!
BS Allen with his Brough Superior 'Old Bill' replica, with twin-cam JAP 980cc SV engine, and little else! [The Vintagent Archive]Dave Clark of the Brough Superior Club saw my post, and filled in a few details: "Brian Seamer Allen to be precise, was a real speed nut, and was formerly a pilot in WW1 on the Western front, flying an SE5a. After the war Allen opened a motorcycle dealership as a partner of a Mr Bennett, trading as Allen-Bennett motorcycles in Croydon, selling Brough Superiors among many others.
BS Allen as a Royal Flying Corps pilot in WW1 [The Vintagent Archive]Dave Clark of the Brough Superior Club saw my post, and filled in a few details: "Brian Seamer Allen to be precise, was a real speed nut, and was formerly a Royal Flying Corps pilot in WW1 on the Western front, flying an SE5a. After the war Allen opened a motorcycle dealership as a partner of a Mr Bennett, trading as Allen-Bennett motorcycles in Croydon, selling Brough Superiors among many others.
A fitting prelude to Brough Superior ownership; an SE5a biplane...[Wikipedia]Allen-Bennett sold T. E. Lawrence some of his seven Broughs, and occasionally BS Allen rode out with Lawrence on very early morning rides around Croydon... a 'bat out of hell' job I think. The 1923 photo here was taken during the London to Lands End Trial, with Allen on a standard 1923 Brough Superior SS80 with single-cam JAP sidevalve 980cc engine. The registration number is BY 9587.
The 1923 London-Land's End Trial, with BS Allen on his single-cam SS80. [The Vintagent Archive]The next photo shows the same machine, re-engined and beautiful, with a very shiny chair, at a hillclimb in mid- to late-1923.
A gorgeous improvement! The SS80 now with twin-cam JAP racing engine and aluminum 'zeppelin' sidecar. [The Vintagent Archive]The BS Allen mystery deepens a bit, as he was pictured in the 1924 Brough Superior catalogue with an exceedingly special-framed SS80 JAP sprinter. This was of course the same time as the birth of George Brough's 'Old Bill' with its engine specially tuned byBert Le Vack.
BS Allen as he appears in the 1924 Brough Superior catalogue. [The Vintagent Archive]Brough Superior built another Old Bill replica for Pilot Officer Beaumont, who advertised the bike for sale in December 1923. I reckon Brian, being a former RFC pilot, brokered the deal with George Brough to build Beaumont's replica, a deal which included a very special engine for Allen himself, after he realized how good this special-framed sprinter. Allen first installed this special two-cam racing engine in his old chassis, now the re-engined BY 9587. Note the magneto chain drive cover, which is the same style on the various photos.
The 1924 advert for PO Beaumont's 'Old Bill' replica. [The Vintagent Archive]When Allen-Bennet folded in the late 1920s, Brian subsequently returned to his other love - flying, setting up shop as Brian Allen Aviation, and dealing with light aircraft, including the Belgian E.O.Tipps and American Stinson.
Worth a second view - the zeppelin 'sports' sidecar offered by Brough Superior. [The Vintagent Archive]Brian and his wife Kathleen were killed by a blast from a German flying bomb in WW2.
Probably a plane inside...the truck of Brian Allen Aviation Ltd. [The Vintagent Archive]
Paul d'Orléans is the founder of TheVintagent.com. He is an author, photographer, filmmaker, museum curator, event organizer, and public speaker. Check out his Author Page, Instagram, and Facebook.
The Guggenheim Museum's reflective interior spiral designed by Frank Gehry for the 'Art of the Motorcycle' exhibition in 1998. [Guggenheim Museum]I graduated from college in 1984, when old motorcycles were junk, and started my career in earnest, as a hoarder of relics, an old bike swapper, and a sometime dealer. In the 1980s and '90s, if you didn’t agree that obsolete motorcycles should be discarded, you were an eccentric. If you owned a corral of ‘rusty old bikes’, you were on par with the scrap-man, and the theme from ‘Sanford and Son’ hung about you like perfume. No matter the depth of your passion, seriousness of your interest, or evidence of your connoisseurship in the astute historic purchases you’d made, when you informed a civilian that you collected vintage motorcycles in the 1980s, their response was invariably ‘why’?
Author Paul d'Orléans in his garage with 3 vintage Nortons in 1985: 1959 Model 99 Dominator, 1966 Atlas, 1962 Electra. [Paul d'Orleans]We of a certain age endured the special scrutiny awarded vintage bike collectors, which is not to diminish the raised eyebrows cast at every motorcyclist in a first-world country. Why citizens feel an obligation to warn us that motorcycles are dangerous and we’ll surely be killed like their second cousin Virgil, beggars the rational mind. As if we were new to the game, and hadn’t learned PDQ what the rules were, and the consequences of mistaking our chosen playing field for a friendly game. We know the risks, and deal with them according to our personality; some of us wear crossing-guard vests over the latest protective gear and ride BMWs with anti-lock brakes, while some of us wear socially abrasive vests, asphalt-eater denim, and have no front brake. Regardless, we are all stained by the same sin, an addiction to the erotic cocktail of speed, unfettered mobility, and danger unique to motorcycling.
The stunning effect of turning the Guggenheim's interior spiral, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, into a silver machine. [Guggenheim Museum]The Art of the Motorcycle exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum back in 1998 changed the course of history for old bike lovers, in ways we’re still sorting out. It was a brave and controversial move by Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim’s bike-riding director, to mount the show at all. He had been in talks with BMW for many months, who were looking for a suitable exhibition to bankroll. It seemed a natural fit that a motorcycle manufacturer should sponsor the most important bike show in history, but not everyone agreed. Regardless that it was the Museum’s second most-visited exhibit ever, plenty of critics found reason to deride the show, calling it a crass pandering to BMWs corporate money, and a surrender of curatorial integrity to the twin evils of cash and popular culture.
Time magazine's art critic Robert Hughes, author of the 'Shock of the New' books and PBS series; closet motorcyclist! [TIME magazine]Of course, ‘we’ had our allies…including any art critic who’d actually ridden a motorcycle. The late Robert Hughes, author of the seminal modern art books and PBS show ‘Shock of the New’, wrote on the back page of Time magazine (Aug 18, 1998) that it was high time bikes were in museums. His only lament was the absence of choppers (barring a ‘Captain America’ replica), which he considered especially worthy of big museum show as unheralded examples of Folk Art, in the subcategory Outsider Art. To that, we all nodded our heads; a biker might be as mainstream as Malcolm Forbes, but we all identify with outsider status, because motorcycles are the great leveler. On a bike, the distracted Volvo mom and the half-asleep pickup trucker care not for your bank account, social position, or fame; all are equal before their lethal grille.
The apex of motorcycle collecting then and now; a JAP-engined Brough Superior SS100 [Hockenheim Museum Archive]Among bike collectors, the response to the Art of theMotorcycle was a mix of ‘it’s about time’ and ‘oh boy, here we go’. That motorcycles should be equated with the art objects typically found in museums was a conclusion reached at the start of any vintage enthusiast’s journey. That second reaction – uh oh – was the awareness that our private world, the subterranean network of moto-obsessives, would shortly be blown wide open. We couldn’t have predicted ‘Pickers’ and reality-ish motorbike TV, but we knew the gig was up; it was only a matter of time before the money-juice saturating museum treasures would slime our hobby for good, and we’d all become professionals and auction watchers, or hide our heads in old oil drums while greedy ‘value-hunters’ banged on our garage doors.
Paul d'Orléans and Susan McLaughlin putting a 1934 Brough Superior 11.50 through its paces at one of the remarkable Wheels&Waves festivals in France. [Vincent Prat]And so it has proved. For better or worse, we have all become grease-stained connoisseurs, struggling to keep our mobile investment portfolios on the road at the very best, or hidden out of sight at worst. Nowadays stories of fraud and wobbly ethics circulate like cancer tales at an old-folks home; personal ‘loans’ taken out of rich club coffers, ultra-shady deathbed ‘gifts’ of Series A Vincent twins, significant provenance machined from lumps of new metal. Humans are consistent; similar tales are stacked like rocks as the very foundation of the Bible. But sometimes, I just want to ride my old bike, and fast enough to keep the invisible price tag behind me, flapping in the breeze.
