Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 AMCA West Coast Nationals and swap meet. Dixon California June 20th. Part One.

A gold mine of antique parts.
If you need it, you can probably find it. But can you afford it?

Last year I attended this event and it had quite an influence on me. Shortly afterwards I decided to buy another motorcycle after an 18 year hiatus!

That year I used my flip phone to take some photos and have posted those. The photos were only satisfactory in quality. Since then, I've decided to take my Samsung digital camera with me to events and record them with more photographs. I'm going to share the photos and some interesting stories in a series of posts.

There are many restored bikes that are involved in the show, and those bikes are beautiful and finished to a high degree. Many others are completed restorations that are brought to the show but are not entered in the competition. Then there are the "Riders." These are the equivalent of an automotive "driver." These are antique bikes that have been restored to a ride-able condition, though they remain somewhat cosmetically challenged. Though their owners would tell you that they are as finished as they are likely to get! Scattered around the swap meet ground are the projects, or "builders." These are the non running, partially disassembled, cobbled together partial machines, or just forlorn piles of parts. These may eventually serve as a parts bike, or they might become the basis for a future "rider" or restoration. 

These sad collections of parts are often what I focus my attention on, as they are much more affordable than complete machines. There is a lot of romance involved in dreaming about rescuing and restoring these neglected machines.

I'm going to start out showing some of the nicely restored bikes that I found.

If you know, then you know.

This is an extremely well built Indian/Vincent hybrid. It looks like a factory job, and the uninitiated wouldn't even know that it was a customized bike. It's kind of hard to imagine that a guy had an empty Indian chassis and a spare Vincent engine laying around, so he knocked this out!

If you're a purist you might prefer this beautiful red example. Indian just released a basic version of the new Chief that channels this machine's vibe.

2026 Chief retails at 20,000.00
A new ride that can be ridden anywhere, any time.
a machine that could last you a lifetime.

Retro styled new, newer machine, or original antique? 

This is a discussion that I'll revisit in a later post.

Here's an Indian chassis that awaits a full restoration or an engine transplant. Hold my beer!

This is a Harley VL, from the early 1920's. I saw an unrestored example offered here for sale at 35k. I can just imagine how much this is one will sell for!

I really liked this rusty old bike, but there is no way I could swing the price, 35,000 dollars. Then the resto would at least double the cost. I would just get it running and ride it.

This Indian Scout is a 45 inch (750cc) machine. They were very popular back in the 1940's. I had an elderly neighbor who once told me that as soon as he was out of the Navy following WWII, he bought himself a Scout. This conversation was prompted by his seeing my Kawasaki Mach III. This was in the early 1970's, (1973) I was still in high school. The sobering thought is that I'm now older than he was when we had that conversation!

I believe that this is a 500cc Triumph Daytona. But I could be mistaken. The engine looks too small to be a 650. Triumphs were quite desirable back in the 1960's before the Japanese Invasion kind of made them irrelevant. Still, they have their die hard fans. But you can't deny their beauty. My local Honda Dealer; Nelson Brothers in Oakland, handled Hondas,Triumphs and BMWs.

Speaking of BMWs, I thought that these things were as dull as dishwater back when I was a youngster. But you have to respect them. They were the premiere long distance touring bike. They were famed for their reliability and their riders could lay down astronomical mileages. The Earles articulated fork, allows the front wheel to roll over bumps instead of fighting with them. I saw (and ignored) a lot of these at the Nelson Brother's show room.

Let's take a look at the Hondas that I knew in my younger days.

You have nostalgia for the machines that you owned back in the day, as well as the machines that you wanted to own. I rode Hondas but dreamed of Harleys. There were quite a few immaculate Hondas on display in the judging area.

This is a circa 1965 305cc Super Hawk, the CB77. Though it was only 305ccs in displacement. it was comparable in performance to a 500cc British twin. With 28 hp. it would hit 100 mph. I'm assuming that this was on a Japanese test track with the rider proned out. It also had an electric starter, a double leading shoe front and rear brake, reliable electrics, no leaks, and unquestioned reliability. Certainly the first big nail in the Brit's bike's coffin. I had a Super Hawk like this that I converted into a chopper! These bikes were big enough to handle any job.

Just in case you didn't believe me! Junior year 1972.

Most of these were painted black, aka "The Black Bomber."

The '65 CB450 had 100ccs on the Super Hawk but wasn't that much faster. Honda was already building bikes with high technology. This bike sported a  DOHC, (dual overhead cam), design engine along with torsion bar valve springs and constant velocity carburetors. This was race bike tech for the street rider. I rode my Brother's '70 model for a year when he moved up to a CB750. The 450 also sported a front disc brake.

The bike that I have the most nostalgia for is the CL77 305 Scrambler. Probably because I never got to own one.

This was a bike that copied the Triumph desert sled style of off road bike. Though they weren't that effective in stock form, they were modified into adequate competition bikes. What I, and most other guys really liked were the sporty looks. 

Scarmblers were the "cruisers" of the 1960's.

I think that the Scrambler warrants three photos!

When Honda introduced the four cylinder CB750 they announced that the Japanese manufacturers were taking no prisoners. This bike so out distanced anything else on the market. In performance, comfort, and reliability. There were few teething problems at first, but they got ironed out pretty quickly.

Even such a revolutionary design like this can become commonplace. Every other Japanese manufacturer developed their own transverse fours in various displacement levels. Consumers became so jaded with these bikes that they were derided with the term; UJM, Universal Japanese Motorcycle. The CB750 was a great bike, it made high speed travel effortless. I had two of them.

Finally we come to the CBX, an 1100cc transverse six cylinder motorcycle. It was in some ways the logical conclusion of Honda's engineering. The engine wasn't any wider than the four cylinder machines. The alternator and ignition timing mechanism were moved to behind the cylinders on a jackshaft. 

This bike never set the world on fire like the CB750 did. Maybe riders thought that four cylinders were enough, or maybe that engine just looked too awkward and hard to handle. The CBX later morphed into a fully dressed sport Tourer, but they never became truly popular. 

I will continue with this theme in following posts.