Here’s a beautiful lightly custom Triumph, bobbed and given a nice monochromatic appearance centered on a tank painted and pinstriped by the hand of Von Dutch (a.k.a. Kenny Howard); motorcycle and hotrod custom painter and pinstriper extraordinaire from the sixties. This bike sold recently at an auction of Bud Ekins items by Bonhams.
Triumph motorcycles in the sixties can’t be discussed without mentioning Bud Ekins; one time owner of a Triumph dealership in California, desert racer and Syeve McQueen stand in (“The Jump” on The Great Escape) he appears to have an old school coolness when atop his bikes. He ran the ISDN (International Six Days Trial) winning a gold medal 4 times and silver once, no mean feat.
The use of the Triumph logo with another marque, somewhat like the bike in the previous post. Let the good times roll! Now the converse could be achieved with Triumph represented with the Helvetica of the Kawasaki logo…
Several years ago Kawasaki came out with the W650, a short lived cult classic which had the looks of a British twin, even more so than the then newly debuted Triumph Bonneville, and the unleaking, electric unfailing reliabiliy of a modern bike. Well Team Green have come out with a larger one, to compete directly with the Bonnie perhaps, but this time in classic Kawasaki colors of the time. This should sell by the truckload… sign me up!
I’ve doctored a couple of photo’s of the bike to give it a more vintage quality. Very period looking. Evocative of halcyon days ripping along english country lanes…
You can’t talk about comic art with motorcycles and not mention Judge Dredd. ‘Old Stoney Face’ Joe Dredd maintained law in the massive Mega City One riding his Lawmaster. He was Police, Judge and Jury all and kept a semblance of order with a harsh hand.
One of the outstanding pieces graphically was the story Inferno; loosely based on the movie Rollerball (the sublime 1975 version NOT the 2002 one!). A future sport being a mix of Football, Basketball, Baseball, Speedway, MotoCross, Kung-Fu based in an arena of cinders with jetpacker flyers and a healthy dollop of ultraviolence thrown in. Artie Gruber being one classic character. Massimo Belardinellis bikes were sumptuous choppers with outlandish engineering and cool riders with harpoon-line powergloves. Sadly the plug was pulled due to the overly violent nature of of the action.
Back in the late seventies I read the then new comic 2000AD ~ fantastic and violent stories of the near future. Classic artwork by the likes of Pino, Ezquerra, Bolland and Belardinelli graced the pages. I would devour these stories again and again until the pages were threadbare. I would then draw the action scenes and allow the oft featured bikes to soak in to my subconscious. One early story M.A.C.H. 1 centered around a character called John Probe, with superhuman strengths (man activated by compu-puncture hyperpower! `~ “Six Million Dollar Man”?) Many of his stories involved bikers on the top models at the time, as well as a few fantastical ones.
Enjoy the art…. beginning with Probe gunning the throttle of a Benelli Sei.
Another early story involved the invasion of Britain by some ficticious Eastern Block country called Volga; it took the rough edged resistance leader, Bill Savage, a lorry driver armed with his shotgun and working class quips to save the day. However the Volgs were armed with fast sportsbikes equiped with machine guns.
Motorcycle showman extaordinaire ~ Evel dominated the stunt world of riding through several decades, fans eagerly waiting for him to jump cars, buses, fountains, and the Snake Canyon. With star spangled cape flying, there always seemed to be some sort of spill on the landing ramp, stretcher borne exit and shaky ‘thumbs up’ from the rider who, I’m sure, introduced many a boy to the daredevil world of motorcycling. Where does Triumph come in? Well one of his most famous jumps was over the fountain at Caesers Palace in Las Vegas NV. He rode a Bonneville 650.
Now, any boy growing up in the mid-seventies yearned for the popular Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. I had the chopper. Rev up the ‘energizer’ and watch him go. Ramps were set up in schoolyards, across back lawns and along the streets. My figure of Evel suffered a fractured ankle: a piece of the wire armature poked through the thick rubber skin. Much like the real guy!
Smaller die-cast bikes also apeared; raced alongside my Britains bikes. These modelled after Harley Davidsons, his latter s’steeds’. Now, honestly if you were going to jump over things would you want a lump of iron like a Harley under you?
There was even a toy marketed soley for girls, Derry Daring with pink jumpsuit, long blonde hair and matching stunt cycle and energizer: classic stuff…. sadly this didn’t make it over to the UK. I wonder how many girls were inspired to ride?
Another journey around the world undertaken was in 1998 by Nick Sanders, professional long distance biker extraordinare, who rode a world record 19,930-mile in a record riding time of 31 days 20 hours. He has since repeated this feat in faster time on a Yamaha R-1. The post ride look is priceless… absolutely knackered and pleased it’s over.
You can catch up with his latest shenanigans at http://www.nicksanders.com/
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