Mike, the owner of the hot rod ’50 Cadillac, has other wheeled interests. His driveway is graced with a 260Z (or was it a 240?), no less than three Datsun 510s (two sedans and a wagon). But then he invited me in, and what is sitting prominently on a desk in his living room? An awesome hot-rod Triumph that he is assembling from various donors. This is a very masculine abode indeed.
It’s been almost two years since he told me the origins of the various components, but I think I remember the frame being from an early fifties “hard tail” Triumph, the springer front fork from a thirties Triumph, the front wheel is obviously from a sixties Japanese bike. And the engine I’m almost 100% sure is a 500, since the 650 has the distinctive black cast-iron barrels. Or? Oh; and Mike is also into vintage bicycles from the sixties and seventies. And he’s not married, obviously.
I dread to think what my wife would say if she came home and found a motorcycle on a desk ! She makes enough fuss about an allow wheel on the kitchen floor .
Surely sixties bicycles don’t count as vintage ? You might call them classic , or nearly-new.
I’m always glad to see guys restoring or hot rodding old Triumphs and such. Harley is to the bike world what the SBC is to cars…both bore me.
Also, that picture makes me feel like I’m wasting my bachelorhood by not having a disassembled motorcycle in my living room.
Awesome!
Once a friend of mine needed something welded and dropped by a little machine shop. He found the owner, sitting at his office desk, with his helmet on running a bead on a piece of metal.
In my college dorm a guy had his bike spread all over the floor of our big shared bathroom. Very educational, actually.
At least his living room doesn’t look like this!