Welcome to our Friends section, page 1. These are pictures about the people, events and motorcycles involved with the vintage scene that you might like to see. We hope you enjoy them. Please feel free to contact us with any comments.
We will be regularly updating this page as we gather more material from our visitors, friends, family, cohorts and customers, so check back often.
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This 1952 Harley Davidson K Model belongs to Greg Girouard of High River, Alberta.He has painstakingly rebuilt it and picked up some awards at local Show 'n Shine events in the process. Nice work, Greg!
1952 was the first year of the K Model, the forerunner of the Sportster, which was introduced as a 1957 model. The Sportster is still in production and is the longest continuously manufactured production motorcycle in the world!
Built to compete with the invasion of high performance, light weight British imports such as those produced by Triumph, BSA, Norton, Matchless, Ariel, etc., the K Model suffered from teething problems and was not an instant success. To further compound the problem, the British government had devalued the Pound Sterling with the result being a flood of British imports onto the North American market at seemingly unbeatable prices. It was enough to help kill off Indian. Over at Harley Davidson, the motor company had to scramble to compete both in terms of performance and market share.
Three fine examples of American motorcycle heritage belong to Ron M. of North Vancouver, British Columbia. Ron is a long-time, well known member of the community and can regularly be found at many vintage motorcycle and car events.
Clockwise from the top left:
We have a 1945 Indian (military) Chief, done up in civilian colors, his 1946 Chief, and a shot of the same '46 Chief with his '47 Harley FL. All three of these bikes have some historical significance, other than being really cool old motorcycles.
The '45 Chief is rare as very few Chiefs were produced for the military during WWII.
The '46 was the first year of return by Indian (and Harley Davidson for that matter) to civilian production following the war. It was also the first year of the now classic Indian "girder" front forks, which were actually only produced on 1946 - 1948 Chiefs. There were no 1949 Chiefs manufactured as the Wigwam was concentrating its efforts on the new lightweights. This turned out to be a mistake and was one of the final nails in Indian's coffin.
Ron's '47 FL was the last year of the famous Knucklehead; the forerunner of all modern Harleys. Is could be said that the Panhead, Shovelhead (my personal favorite), and Evolution engines are all just updated Knuckleheads. Other firsts for that year are the new 2 light dash, "SpeedBall" tank badges, redesigned shift gate, and now classic "Tombstone" taillight. I'm thinking that Ron likes red ...
Now here we have a real character! These are pictures of the Brand New Old Bike owner's Uncle Marvin, mostly taken during WWII.
Clockwise from top left:
Marvin & 1939 Indian Sport Scout Bonnieville, same guy on another Sport Scout, Marvin on the back of 2000 Indian Chief (the owner with the handlebars), Marvin & 2k Chief, same two guys and bike mugging for the camera (we're not sure why the Chief is showing us its rear end), and finally Marvin & 1930 something Douglas Wessex.
Marvin was a long time motorcycle enthusiast and loved them throughout his life. We have some old home movies of him riding us kids around on his Harley WLC taken around 1960 or so. (We'll post a clip on-line when we find them). The reason for including the shot on the centre right is because he finally got to return the favor some 47 years later over the same roads he had been riding since the 1940s. At his insistence!
Sadly, Marvin passed away suddenly in the late spring of 2009. He will be dearly missed having been a major influence on the owner's otherwise somewhat convoluted development. He's the guy responsible for planting the motorcycle bug in him so many years ago!
The owner did take time to ride up to the original homestead in the Grande Prairie region of north western Alberta from his Vancouver home in 2007 to see him. Through 750 miles of rain, hail, gail force winds, cool temperatures and everything other than sunshine and warmth, it was well worth the trip.
Marvin's suggestion was to leave the Chief for him and take the Greyhound back home. He still had the need to get in the wind after almost 70 years of riding and still had a bike as late as the late 1990s. Not too shabby for eighty-some year old man. We should all hope to be half that lucky ...
Friends
