The Adoration of Potential

There is a phenomenon that has come to past in the last 20 years or so. It's a phenomenon I call 'The Adoration of Potential'. This is the phenomenon of the potential being appreciated for it's own sake thus becoming the end instead of the means. For example. At one time it was only considered cool to have a full blown completely polished and custom painted chopper or hot rod. Then as works in progress and rats started turning up more and more at events, slowly but surely, rough cars and bikes (primer, bare metal customs, and survivors), became admired for what they could become. Or to put it another way, seeing the 'Beauty in the Beast'.

Mix in the emotions of nostalgia that creep in as one gets older and you develop an 'adoration' for the things you once admired solely as potential. Now a days, all kinds of old beaters fall into this kind of adoration. 

For me, this occurred in the form of a growing appreciating of old Harleys and since many a custom was born from them, especially old police Harleys. Factor in, when I was young, sometimes the only Harley you might see on any given day would be a police bike.  Then in 1975 I myself went to the CHP to bid on some cop bikes with the intention of building a chopper.

From Choppers Magazine. Roth's 'Oink' likely came from this adventure. Big Bike magazine also did it's own feature on buying police bikes.

Who among us doesn't dig this old dog?

So now I have a thing for old cop bikes (especially the basic blacked out versions as shown), and have collected the parts to one day put my FL Panhead back to it's believed police origins.