Monday, November 28, 2011

7Up Triumph once again

Another shot of one of two 7UP Triumphs built for 7UP Bottling of Los Angeles. One was a 650 and the other a 500. Gorgeous Molly paint in 7UP green (sorry about the black and white the green was incredible). Bikes were pretty much all AEE catalog items. One notable exception is the sissy bar had 7UP spelled out on it (you can just see the bottom of it in the photo) At that time period we sold a tremendous amount of parts for the Triumphs. I always loved the crossing upsweep pipes, Beautiful flow to them.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Roth

A picture of the famous AEE Corvair Trike and Ed Roth's 45 trike in front of Roth's place in May wood. Tom McMullen had known Roth for some time and had bought his famous Knucklehead from Roth. This picture is from the first issue of Street Chopper. They did a pseudo head to head competition with the trikes. Reality is the Corvair would eat teh45 for lunch but it made for a good story! If only we could find the Corvair Trike! You guys in LA need to start looking, it's hiding down there somewhere.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Pink floyd

This is one of 4 Pink Floyd choppers built with lots of AEE parts. I am trying to get more info on the bikes. They were built for an early Pink Floyd tour in Europe.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Mirror

I am restoring an old iron cross mirror like we sold at AEE. We bought these from a vendor and did not make them. The arm slid in to the back of the head and utilized 2 set screws to tighten the arm in to the head. Compared to some of the plastic and cheap crap today this is a quality piece even if pretty much useless as a mirror.This mirror was in decent shape but needs the stem rechromed and I am prepping it for fresh black wrinkle paint. We sold this mirror and a crescent shape and a few others but this was the most popular by a wide margin.

Monday, November 14, 2011

AEE Square springer

This is a crappy shot of an AEE springer I have (in the shot it looks like the front legs have twist to them. They don't, it's a reflection off my balding head or something). It has the wrong rockers on it. They are the fishtail style that went on the round springer's instead of the crescents that went on square springers. However you could buy each style rocker separately so perhaps that's how these got on there. Its in good shape but I will disassemble and get it re-chromed for use on a future project. it even has the correct nut covers on it which are tough to come by these days.

Me and the man himself....Carroll Shelby

Took this shot 15 years ago...me and Carroll and one of his USRRC Cobras behind us.  Has nothing to do with motorcycles but just love them Shelby's. When I was in high school we used to go down to LAX and check out Shelby's factory and his Goodyear shop. Never forget once I was out behind the Goodyear place (at the east end of LAX) and here sits a transporter with GT40's on it! Unreal stuff.
The day this picture was taken I bent down and whispered in his ear "thanks for the cars". He lit up like he had just won the lottery. Great moment for both of us!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

AEE Square glide and my first day at AEE

This is a picture of the first square glide, it was part of an article about the glide in May 1971 Street Chopper. I went to work at AEE early in 1971 which is when this was shot. The guy on the left is Jim Clark who was with Tom off and on at AEE and Street Chopper and Street Rodder over the years. Probably knew Tom the longest of anyone and was part of the formation of AEE Choppers. The other guy in the picture is the guy that hired me, named Ralph. I post this as he hired me on friday night. I show up monday morning and he is not there. I stand around out front after all the employees file in and Tom asks me why I'm there. I tell him I got hired friday by Ralph. He says "well come on in, I fired him friday night!"......that was my welcome to AEE.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A DBL E

This is a mock up I am working on, note the cool ass license plate. The sissy bar is for mock up only as is the seat. Both are original AEE parts, Trip sissy bar and King and Queen seat.

Dave Brackett at work

Here is a shot of Dave with a little bit of AEE history....AEE frame that Dave designed and built for us, AEE square glide front end and an AEE mini drum. I took this a couple weeks ago up at Dave's place. Note the Kaiser Henry J in the background. Just one of Dave's toys. He is pointing to where the fork stops need to go on this build. More on it later. Don't you love his hydraulic work table?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

AEE STORY!

If you go way back to the beginning of this blog there is a post by Dave Brackett telling the story of AEE. He just updated it and you might want to check it out to get the truth from the horse's mouth. Two thumbs up!

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