Great cars on display, if you can afford to look

Mercedes 280SE 3.5 convertible at the Concours (but not in it).

If there was a Royal Enfield motorcycle among those on display at the Concours d'Elegance at the Boca Raton Resort & Club Sunday in Boca Raton, Fla., I can't prove it. I didn't get in. The price of admission was twice what I'd expected. I should have known that any event with a French word in the title would be beyond reach.

The lovely Mercedes convertible above looked like it belonged in the show but, no, it was just one of the cars driven to the event by people who could afford to get in.

I turned my Bullet for home only to discover, just a few blocks south, a car show at Duffy's Sports Grill. A bit less fancy, for sure, but admission here was free. The vehicles on display were mostly American iron.

Red cars, open hoods; it's an American car show alright.

You can tell the difference between a "concours" and a "car show" instantly: almost all the hoods at the car show were wide open.

Super Commando engine in an uncluttered engine compartment.

This makes sense when the engine on display is something special, like the Super Commando (great name) in this 1968 Plymouth GTX.

TR6 trunk is surprisingly small.

The only British car at the show, a Triumph TR6, didn't seem to have anything special in the engine compartment but here, too, the hood was up — as was the trunk lid, which revealed how amazingly little luggage fits in a TR6.

Corvair engine compartment is full.

The cute 1966 Chevrolet Corvair had its engine compartment open, showing off how General Motors managed to fit four carburetors, the battery and the spare tire in there. This was a notoriously bad idea, but impressive nonetheless.

Model car inside real car.

One last open hood picture: This 1956 Chevrolet in lemon-and-black used the air cleaner to show off a model car in the identical colors.

1958 Mercury Monterey features fuzzy dice.

The 1958 Mercury Monterey on display wasn't in concours condition, perhaps, but it didn't need to be to display its show-stopping, over-the-top styling. Excessive, yes. But look at the dash. It is fantastical, but still relatively clean and functional. The fuzzy dice look like they belong here.

1962 Dodge Polera: almost hard to believe.

Royal Enfield Early Years Virtual Museum documents history of Royal Enfield motorcycles from 1898 to 1929

Here's something to celebrate: the Royal Enfield Early Years Virtual Museum, created by Jorge Pullin, is complete. Show your support for this significant accomplishment by visiting the museum on his My Royal Enfields blog.

Royal Enfield Early Years Virtual Museum.

The museum's logo is a cleverly altered image of the Harley-Davidson museum in Milwaukee, Wis. But there is no physical museum. The  precious and rare antique Royal Enfield motorcycles displayed in the Royal Enfield Early Years Virtual Museum are images gathered by Jorge.

Each year's entry, from 1898 to 1929, is as complete a history of the brand as he can make it.

That was the challenge. There is much that is unknown about those early years. This knowledge gap is the reason that the Virtual Museum covers only the years 1898 to 1929, Jorge explains. The years from 1930 on are well documented elsewhere, he writes.

The Virtual Museum makes up for what isn't known with clever asides about what is. Jorge's writing style is conversational and he provides many links that enhance the fun. At times, he is forced to speculate: was the never-photographed 1898 Royal Enfield tricycle just a quadricycle with a different front end?

A typically amusing artifact, in the entry for 1928,  is an article about how to avoid catching your right toe in the open flywheel of a Royal Enfield while operating the brake!

It isn't all just motorcycles, either. There are lavish entries on company history and on the personalities who built Royal Enfield. You'll be surprised how many seeming business executives mounted racing machines in those early days. Another surprising thing is how often the riders racing Royal Enfields to victory were women.

Especially worth a visit is the "U.S. Wing" of the museum, an exhaustive history of what is known about Royal Enfield's efforts to penetrate the U.S. market, from the very beginning to recent times. This is a must-read for U.S. owners of Royal Enfields. You'll be astonished how much history the brand has in this country.

Each year's entry typically lists the sources used to compile it. Jorge is a professor of physics in Baton Rouge, La. His other blog is International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar.  The item I sampled there used the word "diffeomorphism," which I plan to work into all my upcoming conversations.

Another posting there contained this example, to illustrate a finding:

"In other words: if you throw an encyclopedia in a black hole, a sufficiently clever physicist can indeed reconstruct the article on Aardvarks by carefully examining the radiation from the black hole."

Until that sufficiently clever person arrives, I will be content with contemplating Zeppelin raids on Redditch, factory tennis courts, mysterious two-stroke triple-cylinder engines and the unlikely racing victories detailed in the Royal Enfield Early Years Virtual Museum.

Give it a look.

Great gas mileage isn't why we buy Royal Enfields

Is this the reason you should buy a Royal Enfield?

Rick Fairless' Strokers Dallas is certainly one of America's most colorful Royal Enfield dealerships. How many other Royal Enfield dealerships have had their own reality TV show?

Want further proof: check out the multiple links to biker babes and bikini contests on Strokers' website.

You might ask what a nice Victorian girl like Royal Enfield is doing here in Texas amid the chicks, choppers and tattoos. But Strokers has a practical side, too, and their latest posting is devoted to — what??? — gasoline mileage!

"Gas prices got you down?" Strokers asks. "Some of our new and used motorcycles average 40 mpg, and the Royal Enfields average up to 70 mpg! I bet you can see those dollar signs adding up in your head as you compare these numbers to the average on your car or truck!"

No. I can not.

Readers in India may not understand it, but gasoline mileage is not the reason Americans buy motorcycles. Scooters, maybe. But Americans buy motorcycles:

1. To go fast.
2. To look hot.
3. To make noise.
4. Because they like motorcycles, and,
5. To get someplace.

Reasons No. 1 and 2 don't apply so much to Royal Enfield, but the rest do. Only reason No. 5 invites gasoline mileage into the equation, and then only for commuters.

Non-commuters in America would typically boast to fellow riders that "(I'm so bad) I burned two tanks of gas just getting here!"

As a former commuter, I appreciated the distance my Bullet carried me between gas stations. But out of all the times people leaned out of their cars to ask me about my Royal Enfield, not one yelled "Hey! Want kinda mileage you get on that thing?"

Sorry, Strokers. Gasoline mileage is just not a turn-on for American motorcyclists. Let's get back to those babes.

Royal Enfield tricycle generates rainbows; and smiles

Pedal powered Royal Enfield tricycle and trailer.

Royal Enfield motorcycles carry you through time as well as distance. They transport you back to, oh, say, 1951, when traffic moved slower and a single-cylinder 500cc  motorcycle gave you freedom to roam.

But here's a pedal-powered Royal Enfield tricycle, for sale on eBay, that offers to take you back to a time before internal combustion. This trike and its whimsical tear-drop trailer are completely impractical for travel anywhere — not least because their purpose is to generate a rainbow as they go.

Pump geared to rear wheel, spray nozzle.

That's right. A pump geared to the left rear wheel of the tricycle is supposed to shoot water from a tank between the rear wheels into a breeze generated by a fan on the front of the trailer. A generator inside the trailer powers the fan. "Under the right conditions" a rainbow is created and, presumably, the rider gets soaked.

Like something out of Willie Wonka, this silly yet very clever machine evokes the "steampunk" movement. Steampunk. I had to Google it. It is H.G. Wells style fiction, complete with steam powered dirigibles and computers powered by clockwork springs. Practitioners dream of an alternative reality, when Victorian England set the rules of behavior and steam power set the pace of progress.

Workmanship from a previous century.

 In such a time, what could be better than a mobile rainbow generator? This one, for sale in Redding, Conn., was originally part of a public art performance, the seller writes. Still rideable, it is finished to 19th-Century standards, with leather wrapped grips and pedals and leather belts holding the water tank in place.

Tricycle sports a Royal Enfield badge and a fender ornament.

 For the original artist, the fact that this is a Royal Enfield tricycle must have had a special appeal. Never mind that these Royal Enfield tricycles are made not in Redditch but somewhere in Asia, perhaps Japan. For use on pedal powered machines, the name "Royal Enfield" was sold on long ago, and has no relation to the motorcycles now made in Chennai, India and, before that, in England.

eBay's Buy It Now price is $2,200. The seller crassly suggests that you replace the tank with a beer cooler and go to tail-gate events. What, and destroy a timeless piece of history?

Generator powers the fan, not the vehicle.

 The world has many SUV tail gates to choose from; it is seriously short of rainbow generators.

I am indebted to Emile Lapointe of Toronto, Canada, who pointed out the eBay ad on the Royal Enfield Bulletech message group.

Yes, it works! See the rainbow?

You design these Rocker-style leather jackets

Royal Enfield patch available from Michael Woulfe.

Brit-style motorcycle patches adorn Michael Woulfe's custom leather jackets and clip bags (purses). He buys the purses and jackets and carefully (very carefully) sews on the classic decorations and adds studs, to your design.

He'll work on your jacket and will even put a patch on your Converse tennis shoes (a surprisingly great look).

The dedicated "Rocker" enthusiast has expanded his catalog since the last time I wrote about him. I got to see his latest custom jackets on display at the Dania Beach Vintage Motorcycle Show last month.

Checkerboard racing ribbon also looks great on sleeves.

The big news is that he has an astounding new variety of patches available (including one for Royal Enfield motorcycles). Woulfe also found a supplier for the checkerboard racing stripe he has incorporated into some jackets. It really pulls the design together.

Woulfe's Rocker Jackets website explains how he opens the lining of jackets before sewing the patches and attaching the studs, so none of the work is visible inside the jacket. The patches are glued, as well as sewn. They don't look like they'll be coming off anytime soon.

New, too, are his custom decorated leather "Café Girl" purses. You can supply your own patch for the purse or choose from the 200 he has in stock.

Custom studs and café racer patch decorate clip bag.

Woulfe wants to work with customers on designing the jackets. He showed me how intricate some of this can be, particularly when it comes to positioning studs. Woulfe does his stitching on two vintage Singer sewing machines; he displays as much affection for them as for his motorcycles.

He says he became interested in the Rockers in 2002; he enjoyed explaining what some of the patches mean to people who visited his booth at the Dania Beach show. There's quite a lot of history involved.

Michael Woulfe in one of his own jackets.

But, in the end, it's all about the look of what Woulfe calls "the Original American rocker jacket."

"Let's get creative," Woulfe's website urges. "Send me a sketch by email with your ideas and we'll get started."

Woulfe is based in South Florida, where he is a radio newsman. But he has worked on jackets with international customers. You can email him at m.woulfe@comcast.net

Rent and ride a Royal Enfield in San Francisco

A Dubbelju Royal Enfield on the Marin headlands over the Golden Gate.

The Royal Enfield Bullet conquered the Himalaya Mountains. Now a man who has ridden Royal Enfields there will let you rent and ride one on the streets of San Francisco and the neighboring back roads of Northern California.

Wolfgang Taft has added Royal Enfield Bullets to his fleet at Dubbelju Motorcycle Rentals, 689A Bryant St., San Francisco.  They've been in business since 1991, offering not only great motorcycles but great rides to motorcyclists.

If you're considering buying a Royal Enfield, Dubbelju even offers a deal that lets you apply your rental fee to the purchase price.


Dubbelju's San Francisco rental fleet.

How did this happen? Let Wolfgang introduce himself:

"I have explored most of Europe on two wheels, either on my BMW R50/2 or my old '58 H-D Pan Head. The Pan Head took me through the desert in Northern Africa in the late '80s...

"On some recent trips to Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Thailand and India I had the opportunity to ride the famous 500cc Royal Enfield Bullets. I fell in love with the Bullet and had to add this classic bike to Dubbelju’s rental fleet.

Wolfgang and Bullet last year in Tibet on the way from Kathmandu to Lhasa.

"Endless twisty back roads right in our backyard will create the perfect stomping ground for the Bullet. The steep hills in San Francisco are icing on the cake for this classic bike, which is made in almost the same way since 1955. Regardless if you are riding up to Mt. Everest Base Camp or Mt. Tamalpais, you will bring home some unforgettable memories riding on this piece of history."

Dubbelju claims to be the oldest motorcycle rental shop in San Francisco, and the one with the biggest variety of bikes:  BMW, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, KTM, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Triumph and, starting in spring 2011, the classic Royal Enfield Bullet.

Rental price includes unlimited miles, free trip planning, liability insurance and 24-hour emergency service.

"As motorcyclists ourselves, we know your needs, we know the area, and we have ridden the roads we recommend. We’ll get you rolling in the right direction and make sure that you return home with only the best of memories," Wolfgang writes.

Renting a Royal Enfield will cost the same as it would if you chose a Triumph Bonneville: $149/day including liability insurance and unlimited free miles. Prices drop if you go three days or more.

The rent-buy deal with San Francisco dealer Munroe Motors is called 100/100. The customer rents for $100/day and gets 100 free miles (additional miles are 25 cents/mile). If the customer decides to purchase a bike after his rental, Munroe will credit his rental price of $100 towards the purchase of a new or used bike from their fleet.


A younger Wolfgang aboard a 1954 Model 20, 500cc AJS in 1971 near his home town of Stuttgart, Germany.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask Wolfgang the meaning of the name "Dubbelju" and he's away from email at the moment. I asked his assistant Cherie, who replied:

"Wolfgang always says that 'Dubbelju' is the German phonetic for the letter 'W' and that when the business was started both his and his partner’s name started with the letter 'W.'

Would you have guessed that?




Royal Enfield featured in horror film now for sale

Motorcycle movie star now for sale.

Here's your chance to own the Royal Enfield motorcycle that "starred" in a movie I personally didn't have the courage to see.

Before the excitement about a Royal Enfield and sidecar appearing in the recent Harry Potter movie, a Royal Enfield played a role in the movie Friday the 13th.

Now a 1996 Royal Enfield is for sale on CraigsList in Pflugerville, Texas with the claim that it is the very motorcycle that carried movie star Jared Padalecki into mortal danger in that film.

It has less than 100 miles on the odometer but looks much older, thanks to its movie makeup. The seller says the motorcycle runs and shifts well and comes with extra parts. He will sell it for $2,250 or trade for British bike, running or not.

Filming of the movie "Friday the 13th."

The photo here of Padalecki on the Royal Enfield is by April and Jason Oldag and was originally posted on the SFUniverse.com blog. I saw it on the Royal Enfield Buzz Blog.

In the movie, Padalecki plays Clay Miller, a character who goes to the doomed Camp Crystal Lake in search of his sister who has gone missing.

The 2009 movie gets a rating of only 5.5 out of 10 on imdb.com

Here's the trailer for Friday the 13th. Yes, you do see the motorcycle in it.

BSA bobber owes a little something to Royal Enfield

BSA bobber has a surprising Royal Enfield feature.

Donald McMahan writes from snowy Minnesota about his BSA bobber. He previously shared the story of his Royal Enfield Interceptor and Royal Enfield Indian Chief  with us. The bobbber looks great, thanks in part to his familiarity with fiberglass work.

He explains why the motorcycle may look familiar to someone accustomed to Royal Enfield motorcycles:

"I saw the mention of a '60s BSA single on your blog and couldn't resist presenting my latest project, completed this last summer.

"I wanted to buy a 1968 BSA B44R 441 Shooting Star new, but couldn’t afford it. Instead, for my first real motorcycle, I bought a 1968 Yamaha YM-1 305cc for a little more than half the price of the BSA single. A friend of mine had a 441 Victor, the “scrambler” version with a high pipe. I loved riding behind him, listening to that fine British single-cylinder exhaust note.

"Again, in 1970 I looked at a used Shooting Star, but had enough experience by then to know that I wasn't fully capable of doing all of the maintenance to keep it running right and couldn't afford paying a shop to do it. I ended up with a Honda 750; the only maintenance required was oil changes and chain adjustments. Those, I could do.

"I found a used Shooting Star in 1986 for about the same as I would have paid for a new one in 1968. Either it held its value or inflation has beaten up our dollar, depending on how you look at it. The bike was completely stock with the fiberglass gas, oil tank and side cover. The single cylinder starting procedure intimidated me for a long time. I would ride it only on weekends and never go anywhere I would have to shut it off for very long.

"Over the years I learned to take the carburetor apart with a screwdriver and a pliers in a ditch alongside the road — don't ask, it got me home. Before we had cell phones, my wife would remind me to carry change for a phone call every time I rode the BSA.

"George Helm put in an electronic ignition and the mysteries of adjusting points and timing came down to a simple twist of the plate. I got tired of the fiberglass and fished the Victor oil tank out of the bottom of a pile in a motorcycle junk yard.

"For a while I went with a dented chrome A-65 (650cc) BSA gas tank that I got from George. I painted over the bondo-filled dent for a mostly chrome look. With the stock chrome fenders it didn't look too bad.

"Life gets busy and I never did rely on this bike as a daily runner, and it sat. It hadn't been run in eight years when I started working on it again.

"I've always loved the bobbers of the '40s. That was my goal, but I didn't want to do any major cutting on the frame. I removed most of the bosses and bracket for the stock fenders, horn, etc.

"There have been a few occasions when I rode without a front fender while I was working on different bikes; that's one bit of pure bobber design I know I can't live with. A face full of road grit isn't my idea of a fun ride, so I made a fiberglass front fender that hugs the front wheel and is as small as possible. A year and a half into the project I retired. Soon, the BSA was coming together.

Did you spot the Royal Enfield influence?

"I imagine that you may have guessed the gas tank is from India and would be at home on a new Royal Enfield. I scrubbed the Royal Enfield script from the knee pads with a razor blade and a light sanding.

"Both fenders and battery box are fiberglass, taillights are LED. The battery box holds a gel cell. I created other various bits using stainless and some aluminum. I think that the big stock headlight looks right, a personal preference. That's what bobbers are all about.

"I would like to change the pipe and muffler for something smaller, but as I get older I don't like loud and I don’t think there’s a quiet option that would look better.

"After much fitting and refitting I bolted everything down tight, put some fresh gas in the tank and plugged in the battery. After a couple of priming kicks I turned the ignition on and it started on the first kick, no kidding.

"I trust it now and love taking it out, stopping and allowing people to see it, then go through a bit of a show kicking it through to get on my way.

"Call me a criminal if you must for destroying a stock Brit, but I like it and I ride it."

Would you trade your Royal Enfield for a snowplow?

Snowplow photo from www.Hiniker.com

The long winter "up north" (as those of us in Florida call the rest of the United States) has taken its toll on a particular snowplow driver.

He wants a Royal Enfield Bullet, 2007 or newer, must be the five speed Classic, with the AVL motor, not the new fuel injection.

In trade, he's offering his 2001 snowplow truck, a black Dodge 2500 with four-wheel drive, new tires and brakes and a Hiniker plow.

The snowplow is in Tivoli, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley near the Catskill Mountains. But its driver isn't sticking around any longer than he has to:

"I'm going south!" he writes, in his ad on CraigsList.

Royal Enfield made the Patrol Car for Indian; Here's a good look at how they did it

1959 Indian Patrol Car, made by Royal Enfield.

A 1959 Royal-Enfield-made Indian Patrol Car is for sale on eBay. These three-wheelers are rare in the United States, at least, and I've not seen this particular motorcycle up for sale before. It's located in Spring Valley, Calif., near San Diego.

This ad is especially interesting because the photos show the frame bare of bodywork, giving us a good look at how these things were put together.

Indian Patrol Car has wide floorboards, hard tail.

I've written about the Indian Patrol Cars before. Made by Royal Enfield and sold in the U.S. badged as Indians, they had three-speed transmissions, with reverse. The gearshift was on the tank.

There is no sign here of any rear suspension whatsoever (oof!) but the floorboards were very wide. the seat, if it had one, would have been a big, comfy sprung saddle.

Two spark plugs, one cylinder.

The motor was a Royal Enfield Bullet 350cc engine, but this one sports dual spark plugs. Is it really a dual-plug head, or is the right-side spark plug just there to close the hole for the decompressor?

Rear axles meet at final drive housing.

My great curiosity is whether the rear wheels had any sort of differential arrangement. The housing for the rear sprocket gives me no clue.

Tank is set up for gearshift.

This motorcycle is said to have good compression and a clear California title. Imagine how difficult it would be to find a gasoline tank set up to take the shift mechanism (unfortunately not included here).

Maybe the eventual buyer of this machine would like to fill us in on his project? I hope so.

Simple toggle switch atop headlight housing.

Are you a Royal Enfield air blower? You might be

Last week I was lucky enough to learn from Royal Enfield's new chief executive officer that the company is working on a powerful parallel twin motorcycle and on a multi-fuel adventure touring bike. He also told me that a kick start lever is coming for Royal Enfield C5 motorcycles imported to the United States.

Royal Enfield CEO Dr. Venki Padmanabhan spoke to me by phone from the New York International Motorcycle Show.

News of the parallel twin and the multi-fuel Himalaya adventure bike quickly spread across the Internet. A few sites linked to the story I wrote, but most didn't, and none I saw even mentioned Dr. Padmanabhan, the source of my information.

That's rude, but here's the funny part:

At least one report I saw was itself ripped off, apparently by automated software of some sort.

"Royal Enfield is definitely on a roll," the original writer enthused. "Latest of all the innovations is an announcement that could lead to massive fan following for this cult bike maker."

The automated software changed this to: "Royal Enfield is really upon a roll. Latest of all innovations is a proclamation which could lead to larger air blower following for this cult bike."

Air blower?

"It's called 'Spinning,'" my wife, a professor of multi-media journalism, told me. The automated software takes a legitimate article, changes some words to synonyms, and re-posts it on the Internet.

The idea is to generate content that Internet search engines will mistake for entirely original material. And the software does this with no effort or expense to the spinner, who thus draws people searching for the term "Royal Enfield" to his site.

It is one thing to be ripped off by careless or inconsiderate fellow writers. It's another thing to be hijacked by software that turns "fan following" into "air blower following."

Best motorcycle photo is often a close-up, if you're careful

1937 Rudge Ulster entered by Ike Miarachi, of Hollywood, Fla.

When it comes to vintage motorcycles, I find the appeal is often in the details: the clever solutions to common problems, a small part that becomes a bit of shiny jewelry, the pride evident in the display of the brand name.

So, at motorcycle shows, I very often tend to take close-up pictures of details I appreciate. Besides, sometimes bikes are displayed in such tight ranks that it's hard to get a nice over-all picture, even of an overall beautiful motorcycle.

Police lights light up an elderly Indian.

Taking close-up pictures was what I was doing at the Dania Beach Vintage Motorcycle Show in Florida last weekend when I almost got in trouble. No, I didn't accidentally swing my point-and-shoot camera against someone's precious polished gas tank.

What caused concern was that I was down on my knees photographing the words "Made In England" cast into the engine case of a 1948 HRD-Vincent Black Shadow. The owner quite reasonably asked if what I was doing was photographing the serial numbers.

1948 Vincent/HRD proudly displays its origin.

I don't know much about rare Vincents, but I know that there are issues involved with cloning expensive motorcycles and their paperwork. Embarrassed, I hastily explained what I was doing. In the picture published here I have carefully blotted out the numbers that were visible under "Made In England."

Once reassured, the owner kindly pointed out the details of the motorcycle, certainly one of the fastest of its day. The reversible rear wheel, for instance, provided an extra rear sprocket for duty pulling a sidecar. Imagine asking a thoroughbred like this to pull a cart!

1948 Vincent/HRD entered by George Bathory of Hollywood.

It was a different world, alright.