Here's my top picks:
Sonny B. aboard a perfect Knucklehead Bob Job in 1956. Note the high mounted mid foot pegs.
Knuckle in a wishbone, Late '50's. Dick Hirschberg's Pan that was shown in a 1960 Hot Rod magazine looked very similar.
I believe this is the same Knucklehead redone and now with dual carbs
After blowing the motor, it was rebuilt, this time using a pan
A very cool half Bob half Chop straight leg Pan (date unknown).
In the mid 60's he seem to mostly ride Sportsters. Here on a '66. I've seen other pics on a '65.
Ralph aboard a '67 E-Glide that's under going transformation and again, I'm loving it!
In Hells Angels '69 a shovel with a Sportster front fork. This is probably the first bike I'd ever seen with the front pipe going out the left. Didn't see anybody do this again until years later. This bike would totally fit in today. The guys in Japan are building bikes like this now.
Does it get any better than this? It's the yellow Pan again, credited as 1960. It's high on my list of top 10 favorite bikes of all time. The only change I'd make are the pipes, which you can't see from this side. According to a Hunter S. Thompson documentary, Hunter took this bitchen photo.
6 comments:
Great post, Chris.
Interesting pics from the early days- people don't realize now how different bikes like that were when there was no aftermarket and support for customizing like there is now.
I have enjoyed your work on bandit's site, now i am checking out this one and those are some fine rides.
TOMYKA
The first pic isn't Sonny. It's from his book though.
It's Sonny. Not only does it look like him, if you go to his website, you'll find it labeled with others as: Sonny over the years.
Paste this into your browser
http://sonnybarger.com/index3.html
Hi Chris, That pic appears on page 8 of Sonny's book "Ridin' High, Livin' Free". It's captioned as the "Silver Satin Kid".
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