{"id":31357,"date":"2025-11-02T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T07:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=31357"},"modified":"2025-11-02T07:57:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T15:57:52","slug":"the-buddy-stubbs-motorcycle-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/11\/02\/the-buddy-stubbs-motorcycle-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Buddy Stubbs Motorcycle Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

The alarm rang early last week, and Sue and I were on the road at 5:00 a.m., pointed east on the 210 for the 5 1\/2 hour trek to Phoenix and the Buddy Stubbs Motorcycle Museum.\u00a0 \u00a0It was worth the drive out there.<\/p>\n

There are more than a few dealers who have a handful of bikes tucked into a corner of their showrooms they call a museum.\u00a0 Not so with the Buddy Stubbs Motorcycle Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.\u00a0 It’s the largest motorcycle museum in the American Southwest, and it’s one of the best motorcycle museums of the many I’ve visited over the last 30 or 40 years.\u00a0 I don’t say that lightly.\u00a0 This place is spectacular.<\/p>\n

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Many marques are well represented. This colors on this early ’60 Noron twin work for me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sue and I visited the Buddy Stubbs Museum recently for an upcoming issue of Motorcycle Classics<\/em> magazine, and I sure was glad we did.\u00a0 The Museum has 137 bikes (with 124 on display).\u00a0 You might think they’d all be Harleys, but you’d be wrong.\u00a0 \u00a0All the cool stuff is there, and it’s all vintage.\u00a0 Harleys, Triumphs, BSAs, Vincents, BMWs, Excelsiors, Indians, and a bunch more.\u00a0 It seems like every motorcycle in the Museum has a story.<\/p>\n

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The 1913 Indian Buddy commuted on between dealership locations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the stories is about the 1913 Indian in its original unrestored glory.\u00a0 You might recall that about 25 years ago Harley made their dealers build new and modern showrooms.\u00a0 Buddy Stubbs was one of those dealerships, and while the new location was under construction, Buddy rode between the old and new locations daily on that 1913 Indian.\u00a0 That’s cool.<\/p>\n

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Buddy’s Cannonball Excelsior. All the spares rode in the sidecar and there was no chase vehicle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another bike with a story is the 1915 Excelsior, with sidecar, that Buddy rode in the 2010 cross country Cannonball Run.\u00a0 Okay, you might be thinking a lot of guys did that.\u00a0 Yeah, but…and the “yeah, but” in his case is that a 70-year old Buddy Stubbs made the ride with no chase vehicle.\u00a0 He carried all the parts he thought he might need in the sidecar.\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n

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Yes, it’s the actual Electra-Glide in Blue.\u00a0 The real one that we all saw in the movie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Remember the 1973 Electra-Glide in Blue<\/em> movie?\u00a0 Buddy taught Robert Blake how to ride a motorcycle for that movie, and the motorcycle that Blake’s felonious motor officer buddy bought with stolen money (in the movie, not in real life) currently sits in the Buddy Stubbs showroom.\u00a0 Blake went on to a successful TV series (Baretta<\/em>), and then he fell from grace when he murdered his wife (which he got away with in the criminal trial, although he was later found financially liable in a subsequent civil case).\u00a0 It’s tough to convict a movie star here in the Golden State.<\/p>\n

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The black T-Bird (second from right) was The Wild Ones backup bike.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of motorcycle movies, the grand-daddy of them all has to be Marlon Brando’s The Wild One<\/em>.\u00a0 You will recall that Brando rode a Triumph Thunderbird in that movie.\u00a0 \u00a0The producers kept a spare Triumph Thunderbird on set during the production.\u00a0 You know, just in case.\u00a0 That spare T-Bird is in the Buddy Stubbs Museum.<\/p>\n

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A four-cylinder Nimbus. It might have made it into our \u00bfQuantos Pistones? series had I seen it sooner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s a whole section here on ExNotes focused on our dream bikes.\u00a0 Satisfyingly, several of those are in the Buddy Stubbs Museum, including lots of Triumph Bonnevilles, Harley Cafe Racers, and the Harley XR1000.<\/p>\n

By any measure, Buddy Stubbs (who at age 85 is still with us) is an amazing man.\u00a0 You can even buy a book about Mr. Stubbs, which I did while visiting the dealership.\u00a0 I have a signed copy.<\/p>\n

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A chile relleno tamale. Muey bueno!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hey, one more thing that I’d be remiss to not mention in this blog.\u00a0 \u00a0Stop for lunch at the Tamale Factory, which is just 8\/10ths of a mile up North Cave Creek Road from the dealership.\u00a0 I had the chile relleno tamale and Sue had the chicken version.\u00a0 Both were fantastic.<\/p>\n

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