Another day, another Bill’s Old Bike Barn story. Wandering through the collection (I should say collections, but that’s a topic we’ll cover in the next Bill blog), I had to wonder: With all the absolutely stunning vintage motorcycles in his collection, which is Bill’s favorite? Which is the one he prefers above all others?
So I asked the question. I expected to hear something along the bar-and-shield line, as many of the machines in the barn are drop-dead-gorgeous vintage Harleys. Or maybe an Indian. You know, the V-twin thing. ‘Merica, and all that. Bill served in the US Army and he’s a patriot. Bill’s favorite motorcycle would most likely be a big V-twin from either Springfield or Milwaukee, I thought.
Nope. I was wrong. Think Nuremberg. As in Germany.
Right about now, you’re probably thinking BMW. But you’d be wrong, too. Bill’s personal favorite ride is a 1952 KS601 Zündapp. Take a look:
Bill and his 600cc KS601 1952 Zündapp.
Bill’s answer to my favorite moto question surprised me, both by his selection and his immediate ease in offering it up. “It’s my Zündapp,” he said, leading me over to the bike you see in these photos. “When I bought it, it only had 2,600 kilometers. It’s in original condition and it is the smoothest motorcycle I’ve ever owned.”
Check out the odometer on Bill’s Zündapp!A fuel tank that looks like a fuel tank. Bill’s Zündapp is a classy motorcycle.
A Zündapp!
So, who exactly is Zündapp and what’s their story? Glad you asked.
Zündapp started in 1917 as a bomb company. That’s right. Bombs. Munitions. Things that solve big problems quickly. The Zündapp name comes from combining the German words zünder and apparatebau (igniter and apparatus), which are the two things you need for a munition (the detonator and the secondary, or main, explosive). The detonator gets the explosion started and the secondary explosive does the heavy lifting. In 1919, after World War I ended, Germany was prohibited from things like making bombs (the Treaty of Versailles and all that). Zündapp had a choice: Go out of business or start making something other than bombs. They went with Door No. 2, and Door No. 2 led to motorcycles.
Zündapp first made two-strokes with engines from another manufacturer; they started making their own two-stroke engines in 1924. By the 1933 Berlin Motor Show, Zündapp was making four-stroke boxer twins along with their line of two-stroke machines. The four-strokes were called K models in a nod to their shaft drive (kardan means shaft in German). Just before World War II, Zündapp introduced the KS600 flathead boxer twin, with shaft drive, a pressed steel frame, and four-speed transmission. 1951 saw the introduction of the KS601 (the model you see in today’s blog). It featured a tubular steel frame, telescopic front suspension, and Zündapp’s 592cc overhead valve boxer twin engine. It looks a lot like a BMW motor (I supposed to the Germans, a Harley probably looks a lot like an Indian).
The Zündapp is a very interesting motorcycle. One of the Zündapp’s more interesting features is its interchangeable front and rear wheels (they were designed to allow easy tire rotation). When introduced, the KS601 was Germany’s fastest road bike. The Zündapp KS601 also enjoyed a reputation for excellent reliability. Zündapp built fewer than a thousand KS601 motorcycles through 1958, and what you see in this blog is one of them. Production ended in 1958 when Bosch acquired Zündapp.
I could have spent more time examining Bill’s Zündapp. It has not been restored. It is 100% original. It is one year younger than I am. It’s the first Zündapp KS601 I’ve ever seen. It exudes a magnificent patina, and it does so elegantly. I’m going to guess that wherever Bill rides it, he has the only one. It’s easy to see why it is Bill’s favorite.
Catch up with our earlier Bill’s stories! Bill Morris is the real deal, and Bill’s Old Bike Barn is one of the most interesting motorcycle museums I’ve ever visited. We’re doing on a series on the man and the museum; this is our fourth installment.
Miss our first blog on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
Good buddy Paul is the guy who got me interested in the Uberti Single Action Army and blackpowder Colt replicas, and it’s an interest that I am thoroughly enjoying. We visited recently and Paul showed me one I had seen before that he had recently added a set of custom grips to. This is a Uberti Single Action Army with the black powder frame chambered in .44 Special, and it is a stunning example of Uberti’s work.
Paul purchased a set of synthetic ivory grips that had a large decorative eagles molded into the grip material. The original grips with the eagles didn’t quite make it for Paul, and the fit of the grips to the grip frame was poor. Paul sanded the eagles into oblivion and very carefully recontoured the grips for what is now a perfect fit. There are no gaps and no overhangs anywhere. There’s something about the Colt SAA configuration that just feels right in the hand.
I like this gun. I’m a big fan of the .44 Special cartridge. Paul tells me he shoots a 215-grain bullet he casts himself and it is quite accurate. Like my .45 Colt Uberti, Paul’s gun shoots to point of aim at 50 feet, which is great for a fixed sight handgun.
Paul and I had a good conversation about our shared interest in these old western style sixguns. We’re both about the same age and we grew up in an era when cowboy TV series and western movies dominated the entertainment industry, and that undoubtedly influenced our taste in firearms. It was a good time to be a kid, I think.
Today the ExNotes blog extends the tale of Bill’s Old Bike Barn and our continuing features on this magical mystery museum. I knew as soon as I entered Bill’s that a single blog would be entirely inadequate. Nope, this place is like peeling an onion; each layer reveals another story or three. Today’s feature is on two of Bill’s more interesting vehicles, and it was a tough call…everything in this Pennsylvania pleasure palace is interesting. But for today’s feature, the motorcycle half-tracks get the nod.
Bill with his Moto Guzzi Mulo Meccanico. Bill said riding the Mulo is a bear…there are levers and pedals and other things that require constant attention.
Motorcycle half-tracks? I mean, who’d a thought? They come across as the illegitimate offspring of a motorcycle and a Viagra-fueled armored vehicle. It’s a concept that just seems weird, like the designers were stoned when putting pencil to paper. Maybe it is and maybe they were.
The first of these moto half-tracks is the Kettenkrad. The Nazis created the Kettenkrad koncept at the beginning of World War II and it’s no secret the Übermenschen used a lot of what they called Pervitin (which was actually crystal meth) to stay, you know, amped up. That might explain some of the Kettenkrad’s design.
A Kettenkrad parked under the awning behind Bill’s Old Bike Barn. What were the engineers smoking?
I’d seen Kettenkrads in photos and World War II movies, but I’d never seen one in person until a very recent visit to the Lyon Air Museum (the topic of an ExNotes blog and a recent Motorcycle Classics Destinations piece). And wow, just a few months later, here’s another one.
The other moto half-track, the Moto Guzzi Mulo Meccanico, was new to me (I had never heard of it before my visit to Bill’s). It’s the machine you see in the cover photo above.
Bill has one of each: A Kettenkrad and a Mulo Meccanico. The Guzzi half-track holds a place of honor in Bill’s Guzziland display; the Kettenkrad rotates between museum display duties and residing among several military vehicles parked outside the Museum.
Although both are rare, of the two there are a lot more Kettenkrads. Both vehicles were designed specifically for military applications, but in different eras. The Kettenkrad was a 1939 Nazi project designed and built by NSU Werke AG at Neckarsulm, Germany. Originally designed as a paratrooper support vehicle, NSU built 8345 Kettenkrads (10% were built under license by Stower, another German manufacturer). Production stopped at the end of World War II, and then NSU resumed Kettenkrad manufacturing for agricultural applications through 1948.
The Nazi war machine used Kettenkrads extensively on the Russian front for ferrying supplies and troops. Some also saw duty in western Europe and North Africa. Toward the end of the war (and because of fuel shortages) Kettenkrads became airfield tugs (the Nazis used them to pull their airplanes to the runway; the Luftwaffe pilots only started their aircraft engines when they were ready to take off).
As a mechanical engineer, I always wondered if the Kettenkrad’s motorcycle front end actually steered the thing, or if the vehicle steered by driving the tracks at different speeds (as other tracked vehicles do). Talk about mechanical complexity…the Kettenkrad does both. Up to a point, the steering is via the handlebars and front wheel. Once the handlebars go beyond a certain angle, differential track speed steering kicks in. In really rough terrain, the Nazis removed the front wheel entirely and traveled only on the tracks. The Kettenkrad tops out at 44 mph, it has a 36-horsepower, inline, four-cylinder, water-cooled Opel engine, and it weighs 3,440 pounds (a little more than my Corvette).
Next up: The Moto Guzzi.
Wow, talk about mechanical complexity. Check out the front end: A brake, front-wheel drive gears, shafts, u-joints, single-sided fork, and more. The fender offers enough clearance to allow use of snow chains. I wonder what shop rates were back in the 1960s.
The Moto Guzzi Mulo Meccanico is a real oddity. Not only had I never seen one; I never knew such a thing even existed. There were only 200 ever made, and it all happened in the early 1960s. Built for the Italian Army (its official designation was the Autoveicolo Da Montagna, or mountain vehicle), Bill explained to me it was designed for hauling supplies over Alpine peaks. The Italians wanted something more modern to replace the donkeys they had been using (hence the unofficial name, the Mulo Meccanico).
The Italians have a thing for gated shifters. Before going to paddleshifters, Ferrari used the same approach.
The tracked Goose had a gated hand shifter on the right side of the thing that allowed the rider to select any of six forward speeds or reverse. A speedo is the only instrument; it was the Mulo’s single nod toward simplicity. Everything else was hopelessly complex.
You could run the Mulo Meccanico with or without treads. You could adjust the track (distance between the rear wheels) on the fly. You know, sometimes those Alpine goat trails get narrow.
The mechanical details and specs on the Guzzi half-track are both unusual and impressive, but ultimately, the all-too-common engineering mistake of injecting complexity where none was required doomed the Mulos. And wow, the Italian military had a complex set of requirements. The Mulo had to do everything a real donkey could do and then some. The Italian Army wanted to be able to adjust the rear track on the fly to suit narrow trail conditions, so Moto Guzzi designed that into these bikes. The Army wanted all wheels to be driven. Atsa no problem, the Guzzi guys said. The customer wants tracks, like Il Duce’s buddy had on the Kettenkrad? Si, Guzzi said; tracks could be added to the two rear drive wheels (as you see on Bill’s). A steering wheel will do nicely, they thought. And check out the front fork. It was way ahead of its time: Single-sided, a driven front wheel (the thing can actually climb a vertical surface, as you’ll see in the YouTube video below). It’s not hydraulic drive, either; there are shafts and gears and u-joints buried in all that mechanical complexity.
Moto Guzzi originally planned to use their 500cc single for these vehicles, but it wasn’t powerful enough. So Guzzi engineered a V-twin-powered half-ton half-track that could tow and haul a combined 1,100 pounds. The Mulo weighed about 2,200 pounds and had a top speed of 50 mph. Yee haw!
Patina raised to an exponent. Hey, it’s only original once! The future of Moto Guzzi motorcycles, the transverse V-twin engine, lies buried in amongst all that complexity.
What you see here is a camel designed by a committee (the Italian military-industrial complex tried to mechanically create a donkey). The only lasting things to come out of the effort were the famed Moto Guzzi transverse V-twin engine and a good story (that would be this one). The resulting mechanical camel intended to replace the mule died a quick and merciful death, but the engine went on in several iterations to power all subsequent Moto Guzzi motorcycles. Modern versions of the Mandello Del Lario motor power Moto Guzzis today, and the guys who ride Moto Guzzis (like my good buddy Dan) absolutely love them. I always wanted a Guzzi, but it’s an itch I haven’t scratched. Yet.
The Italian Army originally ordered 500 Mulos with deliveries starting in 1961. But the Guzzi’s complexity ran smack into that age-old engineering axiom (KISS, or Keep It Simple, Signore). The Moto Guzzi Mulo Meccanico was just too complicated, too difficult to operate, and too dangerous. The real donkeys could get through those mountain passes just fine and the Mulos could not. In 1963 production stopped after only 200 units. The Army literally went back to donkeys. The real ones.
Hee haw.
One more thing I thought you might enjoy: I found a couple of YouTube videos showing both moto half-tracks, the Kettenkrad and the Mulo Meccanico, in action. The folks in the videos seem to be having fun.
Bill Morris is the real deal, and Bill’s Old Bike Barn is one of the most interesting motorcycle museums I’ve ever visited. We’re doing on a series on the man and the museum, and this is our third installment in that series. You can see the first two below.
Miss our first installment on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
My grandparents on my mother’s side owned a cabin in Cashiers, North Carolina. Built on the side of a steep hill you had to hand carry everything up to the cabin. Maybe if we had a 4-wheel drive we could have made it to the cabin, but my grandparents owned a Volkswagen van. The VW would start spinning its wheels halfway up. Mr. Price, who also lived in Cashiers, built the cabin. It was a slow process as The Grands paid as they went, never going into debt for the place. Mr. Price was easy going and worked on the place whenever he was sent money.
After about ten years of walking to the cabin my Grandfather, Grandmother, Billy Mac and me poured a concrete driveway to the cabin. It was about ten feet wide. The concrete trucks couldn’t make it all the way to the top so we manhandled buckets and buggies to pour that section. Further down we could just dump it out of the truck into the forms.
The job was easier than it sounds because we only had to strike off the top and finish the edges. The driveway had a concave shape to funnel water down the middle like a big sluice. We left the driveway as poured to provide a high traction, rough surface. At intervals we troweled an expansion groove. All in, the driveway was probably 300 feet long. After the driveway was built a car could make it to the cabin and it was real luxury not having to carry stuff up the steep, muddy driveway.
The road to the cabin was dirt, winding past two small lakes that were full of fish. Several roads split off the main road and at the last split before Gran & Gramp’s cabin there was a house with a purple-pink, GT750 Suzuki parked out front. The GT had three, flat black expansion chambers fighting for position underneath the crankcase.
I had read about the Suzuki triple cylinder in Popular Mechanics magazine but this was the first time I saw one in real life. Popular Mechanics did a road test on the bike and loved the big Suzuki. It got fairly good fuel mileage and Suzuki’s complex CCI oiling system was stingy with the injector oil. The Suzuki 750 was regarded as a touring bike, not at all like Kawasaki’s mad, mad three-cylinder H2 750.
The air in the mountain valleys carried sound in mysterious ways and when the owner of the Suzuki started the bike those expansion chambers cackled in on me from all directions at once. Was he above me, below me? Heading away or towards me? It was surround sound of the very best kind. I had a Honda Mini Trail and would ride over to the Suzuki house just to look at the bike. Polished aluminum cases, a color-coordinated radiator, big tachometer and speedo with a water temperature gauge: it didn’t seem like a touring bike to me. It seemed like something from another planet.
In the USA GT750s haven’t reached silly H2 prices yet. Their slightly boring reputation keeps the price low-ish. The engines last quite a long time and a GT750 turning 50,000 miles without a rebuild would not be unusual. A quick Google search brings up runners from $3500 to $8000 and that’s not bad compared to the overly complex modern stuff we are faced with at the local Mega Brand Dealer.
Probably the later GT750s are better motorcycles than the early ones. Suzuki improved the front brake and bumped up the power slightly towards the end of production. The first GTs had a Buck Rodgers look that you either loved or hated. I loved it. Really, I’d be fine with any year. The double-sided, twin leading shoe front brake on the first one was a thing of beauty and I’m guessing stopped good enough.
Of all the three-cylinder Suzukis I think the 750 is best. The 380 was a dog, the 550 was almost unnoticeable on the bike scene in those days. The big, water-cooled GT 750 made a huge splash (ha) and still ranks as one of my one-day, must-have dream motorcycles.
The Suzuki GT 750 is a sensible classic that you can ride everyday and cross the country on if the mood hits you. That’s not why I want one. I want one because of the sound it made in the mountains of North Carolina. I can hear it as I type this sentence, a cross between the whining of a tornado and the keys of a mechanical typewriter slapping onto the page.
Paso Robles’ Estrella Warbird Museum is way more than just warbirds. There are military vehicles, a munitions display, classic cars, race cars, vintage motorcycles, small arms, and more. And then it’s in Paso Robles, a worthy destination all on its own. We’ll touch on each of these in this blog.
First, the warbirds. There are a bunch on display, and there are two I feel most connected with personally…one is the F4 Phantom, and the other is the F-16 Air Combat Fighter.
That’s an F4 at the top of this blog. It’s what the USAF was flying when I was stationed at Kunsan AFB back in the mid-1970s, and it is an impressive airplane. I was on a HAWK air defense site just off Kunsan, high up on a mountain top overlooking Kunsan. We could pick up the F4s as they started their takeoff roll on Kunsan’s runway. When our high-powered illuminators locked on, the pilots knew it in the cockpit. They’d take off on full afterburner (a sensory and sensual delight for anyone who witnessed it), execute a quick 180, and then fly directly at my missile site coming in at just under Mach 1 below the top of our mountain. They were trying to break the lock my scope dopes had on them. Then, at the last minute, they’d climb just enough to clear the tops of the HIPIR’s Mickey Mouse ears. The radars would flip around 180 degrees in two axes with such force that one side of the radar’s support legs would clear the ground by 6 inches. Ah, those were grand and glorious days. At night, in the Kunsan AFB Officers Club, the Air Force jet jocks would ask me about the radars. My answer was always the same: Sorry, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. They’d laugh. They thought I was joking.
When I left the Army, my first job was on General Dynamic’s F-16 engineering team, and just about every defense industry job I’ve had since was somehow associated with something on that airplane. Munitions, 20mm Gatlings, fuel tanks, aerial refueling systems, ejection seats…it all seemed to come back to the F-16. I loved being around that airplane.
Well, okay…maybe one more airplane, and that’s the F-86. Yeah, it’s been obsolete for decades. But when I was at Kunsan AFB in the mid-1970s, the ROK Air Force (as in Republic of Korea) still flew the F-86. It’s a svelte little bit of a fighter, and it was on display at the Estrella Warbirds Museum.
As soon as you enter the Estrella Museum, there’s a small arms display. Hey, I love that sort of thing, and this display grabbed my attention.
I caught something the Estrella curators missed. See those red arrows in the photo above? That rifle was labeled as a Mosin-Nagant. I know my Mosins, and this wasn’t one of them. It was maybe a Mauser, but most definitely not a Mosin. I told one of the docents. She thanked me, but I don’t think she understood what I was telling her.
The Estrella Museum had a munitions display, too. It was cool. I like bombs and bullets. And mines. A mine is a terrible thing to waste, you know.
The Museum also houses the Woodland Automobile Display, which includes classic cars and race cars with an emphasis on dirt track oval racers. The collection was extensive, interesting, and photogenic.
There were military vehicles and motorcycles, too. I’ll get to those in a second, but first, take a look at this. How about a water-cooled Harley Knucklehead engine used in midget racing? That’s what you see in the photo below.
The engine you see above is a Drake-modified Harley V-twin, and it was way ahead of its time. The Drake/Harley was called a “popper” because it vibrated so much. These engines produced close to 100 horsepower, and that was way back in the 1940s. 100 horsepower. Water cooled. Harley, how could you have ignored this back then?
The Estrella Warbird Museum also has a few interesting military motorcycles, including a World War II US Army WL Harley, an M20 BSA single (used by the British in World War II), and real oddity…a 98cc World War II Welbike used by British paratroopers.
For me, a big part of the Estrella Warbirds Museum was its location. I love the Paso Robles area. Getting there is easy. If you’re coming from the North, pick up the El Camino Real (Highway 101) south. If you’re coming from the south, it’s the 101 north. Take California State Route 46 east, Airport Road north, and watch for the signs.
The best kept secrets in this area? The obvious ones are not secrets at all: The riding in and around San Luis Obispo County is awesome. Paso Robles is a wine producing region, and there are plenty of vineyards. You can ride west on State Route 46 to get to the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the premier motorcycle roads in the world (it intersects the PCH near Cambria and Hearst Castle; both are worthy destinations). For a world-class dinner, ride just a few miles south to McPhee’s Grill in Templeton (make reservations, though…you won’t get in without a reservation). There are great missions all along the 101 attesting to the region’s early Spanish influence (they followed the El Camino Real in developing the missions, you know), including the nearby San Luis Obispo and San Miguel Missions. Paso Robles is a California destination, and the riding is good year round. If you’re going in the winter months, dress accordingly. If you’re riding in the summer, stay hydrated.
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Art Benjamins is an artist and a shooter. When I say artist, that’s what I mean…he creates dazzling racecar paintings. Art has done guest blogs for us in the past. Art read Robby’s post recently about his Browning Hi-Power and he asked if he could do one about his Hi-Power. Absolutely, Art!
Here you go, folks…Art’s take on the most-issued military handgun in the world.
It’s funny how everyone has his/her favorite story about their Browning Hi-Power. Like the famous tales from boat owners who can recall only two things of their vessels – when they bought it and when they sold it. Mercifully, not all Hi-Power owners have similar tales of lament. In the heady days of owning self-loading rifles and handguns, the UK offered a healthy choice in types of firearms ranging from the 1800s right to the mid-’80s when the knee-jerk self loading rifle ban was implemented followed by the equally disgraceful handgun ban of the mid-’90s. These were also pre-polymer days, so guns were made from honest steel and wood. Ex-military guns were also cheap and plentiful.
I lived in the east London YMCA from 1974-1976. Inhabited by a hundred or so professionals like myself and students from all countries and walks of life – from the most bland to the most colorful characters. I had befriended an older individual – an unapologetic womanizer who made Warren Beatty look like a eunuch. He had an angry ex-wife and a string of equally angry ex-girlfriends whose lives would intertwine with mine – but that’s another story.
One afternoon he knocked on my door, came straight in, sat in my chair and casually said, “How would you like to date a couple of nurses tonight?” – although those were not the exact words he used. This venue was in Southend – a largish seaside town on the east coast of Essex in the south of England which wasn’t a complete dump during the off-season. He’d been invited to a nurses party there and decided to invite a few others. So it came that five of us crammed into his old car and ended up at some messy nurses dormitory hall where the guys outnumbered the already well inebriated nurses by ten-to-one. After 30 minutes, we positively changed the odds by leaving.
Ten years later the YMCA was a distant memory. I was married and lived in Biggin Hill, Kent – the south of England, and had long taken up with the British shooting sport which was not yet aware of the sweeping legislative changes that hung over its head. The advert in a gun magazine showed a licensed dealer offering his Hi-Power for sale. It was in good working order and only £150. $200 in present money. The firearms dealer was in – Southend, and a smirk came over my face my wife didn’t like the look of.
Unsuccessfully trying to conceal a full-sized Uzi behind his back with his left hand, the dealer opened his door. As he basically invited anyone who may have had nefarious intentions, his idea of some sort of insurance was sound but I felt that his choice may not have offered any form of realistic concealment.
The H-P was a WW2 version made under Nazi occupation. It had the rust brushed and linished away including half the front sight – and re blued. It HAD seen better days but for $200 it would be a nice shooter. It was. Despite the barrel being a replacement, it faultlessly digested 30-year old dirt cheap 2Z Czech SMG ammo with rock-hard primers, 50% higher chamber pressure and which needed almost every single round to be divested of stubborn verdigris. Pachmayr grips and trigger work made into a sweeter shooter – even if I did leave the mag disconnect in place. It never missed a beat – even with verdigris. Our hiking trip in the wild and remote Scottish drizzly highlands one year was a lot safer with my H-P inside a Horseshoe Leathers holster under my army jacket. The others in my shooting club weren’t too impressed with my ‘clunker’ – theirs were of a far better quality. One of the members boasted a highly engraved ‘Renaissance’ H-P which he quite rightly enjoyed showing off.
It would be THAT Renaissance which I saw being laid on the metal desk at the local police station during the 1996 handgun ban. Hundreds of local pistol owners were scheduled to hand in all of their handguns there. My Walther GSP .22” target pistol – my first gun, along with my S&W Model 29, were unceremoniously slid over into the grubby hands of the police officer who gave me a receipt. Some time later, the 40,000 handgun owners would get a government check for their robbed sports equipment which allegedly were going to be smelted down. The biased and rabid media never showed news clips of this happening making us feel that the really good pieces were in storage somewhere. There has never been any official denial of this.
However, I hope my Hi-Power was not among these. I’d sold it a year previous via a local gun shop at a 75% profit. Did the new owner become a member of Belgian or French shooting clubs – two countries which offered sanctuary to the UK shooters by extending membership and gun storage at their ranges and clubs – or WAS in smelted down after all to become a Chinese made manhole cover? Whatever, the Universe still holds the precious spirit of my old clunker but I continue to raise eyebrows when I state that in my life I have visited that grotty town of Southend for only TWO reasons – for a nurse’s party – and to buy a gun.
Arthur Benjamins – 2022
Art, that’s awesome! Thanks so much for sending your Browning Hi-Power story and for allowing us to share it with our readers. Anytime you want to do a guest blog, just let us know!
Eternal vigilance. Gun confiscation happened in the UK, and if were up to some, it would happen here. Don’t let that happen.
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Any story about Bill’s Old Bike Barn has to feature Bill Morris, the man who created it all. The museum and its contents are amazing. The man is even more so.
Bill grew up right where I met him: Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, the site of Bill’s Old Bike Barn. Bill started working at age 11 on the farm, and he never stopped. Bill is 83 now, something I found hard to believe (he doesn’t look or act like it), and his energy level tops most young folks I know. Let’s start with a Reader’s Digest biosketch. Bill joined the US Army (Corps of Engineers) from 1957 to 1960, and then went to work for Chrysler building Plymouths and Dodges in Newark, Delaware. After two years with Chrysler it was back to Bloomsburg and a job with the local Harley-Davidson dealer.
Parts is parts. Keep what you like, sell the rest. That’s a gold-plated Knucklehead engine on the right. As in real gold. “Never could sell it,” Bill said. There was no regret in that observation.
Harley and Bloomsburg Harley were a good deal; Bill went to Harley-Davidson’s motorcycle technician school in 1966. Yep, he’s a factory-certified motorcycle tech. He worked for Bloomsburg Harley from 1966 to 1969.
Ah, 1969. Let’s see…Hollywood was going ga ga over The Wild Angels, Easy Riders, and other miscellaneous motorcycle movie mayhem. The chopper craze was sweeping through America and the rest of the developed world. Bill wanted a chopper, and a builder in Westminster, California advertised that if you had five old hogs to trade, they would build a California custom for you at no charge. Bill asked if he sent 18 old hogs, would they build him a California chopper and return some cash? The answer, of course, was yes, so Bill shipped 18 old Harleys to California and waited. And waited. And waited. He finally went to California to see what was happening and found a rundown chopper shop big on dreams but short on ability.
Bill hung around California for 60 days, bought a pickup truck, and took a partially crafted California chopper back to Pennsylvania. “I figured if those clowns could make custom motorcycles, I could, too,” Bill explained. And he did. The bike Bill hauled back to Bloomsburg needed wiring, wheels, and more, but that was simple stuff. Bill was, after all, a factory-trained motorcycle tech.
Indeed, a Silent Gray Fellow. It’s one of many Holy Grail bikes in Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Bill’s Custom Cycles emerged, and Bill’s talent (as a custom motorcycle builder, a collector, and a businessman) took center stage. Bill purchased his first collectible motorcycle for $20, a 1928 single-cylinder Harley-Davidson, but he quickly realized the best way to acquire collectibles and saleable parts was to buy out other motorcycle businesses and that’s what he did. When Harley Davidson entered troubled times in the early 1970s, Bill purchased the assets of 28 Harley dealerships in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and in an international reach, the Netherlands, Belgium, and South Africa. Bill tells of a recurring theme: A dealer would ask $600,000 for their inventory, Bill would offer a quarter of that amount, the dealer would decline the offer, and then came the call a few months later asking if Bill’s $150,000 offer was still good. It was, of course. Bill knew his business.
Bill loves sidecars. At one point, he bought a European dealer’s entire stock of 60 sidecars and brought them back to Pennsylvania. He sold them all quickly.Wow. Just wow. Get used to that word. You’ll use it a lot at Bill’s Old Bike Barn.Would you pay $200 for a used Panhead back in the day? Bill did. I was going to offer him what he paid, but thought better of it.
Bill’s business model was to sell the parts and complete motorcycles from his constantly growing and profitable inventory. He sold via mail order and became one of the largest sources of Harley parts and Harleyana in the world. All the while, he kept the collectible motorcycles and parts that caught his interest, and he built custom bikes.
Bill has a way with the ladies. On this road trip, we hit Gettysburg, Hershey, the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, the Jersey shore, and more. But all the girls wanted to talk about was Bill.
While acquiring the inventories of motorcycle shops and dealers going under, Bill built a massive collection of Harley signs. That lead to a lawsuit with Harley as the plaintiff and Bill in their crosshairs…Harley didn’t want anyone displaying “authorized Harley-Davidson dealer” signs if they weren’t, you know, an authorized Harley dealer. Bill eventually settled the suit by opening a second building (the origin of Bill’s Old Bike Barn) where he could display the signs but not sell Harley products. “That made the lawyers happy,” Bill explained. It was only a short walk up the hill behind Bill’s Custom Cycles, but it satisfied Harley’s legal beagles.
Bill loves motorcycle signs, so much so that Harley sued him for displaying them a few decades ago. The lawsuit was a good thing: It was the catalyst for Bill’s Old Bike Barn.
Around the same time, Bill became a Moto Guzzi dealer (one of the very first in the United States) and he still has a love for the Italian motorcycles. Moto Guzzi was just entering the United States and they approached Bill. He rented a gas station and just like that, voilà, Bill was a Moto Guzzi dealer (he held the franchise from 1970 to 1975). As Bill explains it, it was a match made in Heaven: He had no money and Moto Guzzi had almost no bikes. The bikes would come in via air one at a time to Teterboro, New Jersey (a two and a half hour road trip from Bloomsburg).
A beautiful Guzzi Ambassador. These things sound more like a Harley than a Harley did. They are beautiful motorcycles. I always wanted one.
Like many people, Bill loved the look and the sound of those early 1970s Guzzis (they sounded a lot like Harley-Davidsons, with a wonderful lopey potato potato exhaust note).
California chopper chic meets Mandello del Laurio.Paint themes that were all the rage back in the day. Think Dennis Hopper Does Italy.
As a custom bike builder Bill knew a blank palette when he saw one, and he rebuilt an early Guzzi police bike as a 1970s chopper. It’s on display in Bill’s Old Bike Barn. In fact, Bill has an entire room he calls Guzziland, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Guzziland will be the focus of a near-term future ExNotes blog.
Stay tuned, my friends. Bill’s Old Bike Barn is a fun story. I’m having a lot of fun writing it.
Miss our first installment on Bill’s Old Bike Barn? Hey, here it is:
Military motorcycle half-tracks? You bet!
