Photo likely taken at the Santa Paula airport. Photo used with permission of Barbie McQueen.
What prompted me to post this was an interesting anonymous comment about the Nov. 08 post that I just received yesterday.
Anonymous said...
- Where is this bike? Cause if you want the truth about it I'm the person to tell it because I'm the one who built it for Steve. I built it for him cause I would not sell him mine. Which I still have the twin sitting in my shop. So piss off to who ever claims building this bike. And yes it was his favorite bike. YES it would be a mistake to restore it. It was built to look like my bike, "A Rat Bike" thats what he wanted.
J.D.
9 comments:
Chris, A couple of years ago I was on a ride in Death Valley with Kiwi Indian Mike Tomas and he was riding this same machine. He did some sorting out on it and if I recall correctly it was going to Jesse James's collection.
Chris, I forgot that I have photos of Mike with that machine.
Doc, Yeah, Click on the Nov. O8 link, it will take you to the original post. It included a photo with Mike and the bike at Death Valley and I also had mentioned that I had seen the bike at West Coast Choppers several years ago. I once heard that Jesse wanted to restore it!
As far as I know, it's in the J&P Cycle Museum in Anamosa, IA.
Least, that's the last place I knew it was.
I have a photo here of me sitting on that bike in the showroom at WCC in about 2001 I think. We took the picture around 11:00pm one night.
I just checked the National Motorcycle Museum's website, and they show it still being there.
They have a picture of it in their 1940's section of the museum collection.
Rich, JP's National M/C Museum is where the photo (in the original Nov.08 post), of Bandit's friend Glenn seated on it was taken. It's still in the slide show on the museum's home page but not in the featured bikes section so it may have been on loan at that time or since sold.
Rich, you must have left that comment before I finished writing my response. I'll go back to their site and check it out.
the twin is local and bitchin!
J.D. is John Douglass Cameron in Costa Mesa, CA. He is currently rebuilding a 1939 Indian Chief as a patina bike (looks old outside, spotless internals), and I have the pleasure of watching and helping out. If you want more information on the original bike Steve Mc Queen wanted, check out BlacktopMagazine.com's article on Ol' White. You can watch the interview with JD and hear some of the stories.
Call me with questions. T. Stokes 949-400-7293
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