The birth of a 1958 Panhead Chopper

This story is true and takes us back to the free love days. The builder and garage is unknown and the author is kinda blurred, probably had dropped acid at the time, but with a bit of reading between the blurred lines this is what I got from it.

The story at the time. takes us back to 1972 in Tracy,CA. The police department auctioned two retired 1958 Harley-Davidson panhead motorcycles. Both bikes had sat unused, outside in the city storage yard for more than 5 years and where in poor condition. These guys were only interested in the frame, engine and transmission. The poor condition of the rest of the motorcycle really didn’t matter to them. They were successful in the bid for one of the bikes. However two weeks after the auction the city clerk called their shop and said the bidder for the second motorcycle had failed to show up and would they match the bid price. Of course they did and picked up the bike with cash in hand the same afternoon.

The sad part of this story is that they threw the tanks, fenders, swingarm, shocks and all the other take-off parts in the dumpster behind the shop. The complete wideglide fork assembly with front wheel and brake attached was sold in the shop for $50. They chopped so many bikes in that five year period with no thought to the future. The shops were jammed to the ceilings with new parts and they had no room to store any of the take-offs even if they had wanted to. The finned, cast pan covers were the latest part from Custom Cycle Engineering, the weld on the hardtail was from Santee Industries and the 20 over girder forks from Wayne Engineering.

They cut the bottom bar from the neck area of the stock frame and welded in a half inch thick gusset, which was then molded smooth with bondo. The neck was cut and raked to 40 degrees and all unused tabs were removed from the frame. That’s a 2.2 gallon Paughco mustang tank that was painted light pearl blue with kandy blue “blow dots” on the side panel. Paughco drag pipes supply the noise and there own adjustable width pullback handlebars top the girder forks.

Cheetah Engineering seat and bayonet sissybar (made with a real military surplus bayonet) with an iron cross taillight to match the handlebar mirror. The rear wheel is a steel 4 inch wide Santee rim (half inch wider than stock HD rims) with a 500x16 ARCO tire. The front wheel is our own all steel spool 21 inch wheel with an Avon Speedmaster ribbed tire. View the large size to see these details. Photographed in there garage by John Reddick in September 1972.