Anything Goes oil tanks are not only on a lot of big name builder bikes as well as the rest of us, but he’s well known enough for what he does that he ships a lot to Europe, Australia, and even the volcanic archipelago off Northwestern Africa known as the Canary Islands. Curt’s been as busy as the proverbial bee trying to keep up with demand while keeping his high standards of quality in his 2.5 car garage that serves as his one-man work shop for his business and his pleasure. So what’s the pleasure part? Building one-off motorcycles exactly the way he wants that Curt likes to think of as art as well as a custom motorcycle you can ride the pants off. That’s my definition of a successful romantic.

 

  Finding the time to build a custom is the hardest part for him as he has to work around a job just like the rest of us garage builders. “It took about two years while I was operating my business,” said Curt. “The bike is 99.9% American parts except for about ten items that I can point out that are not American made.” There’s also plenty of other good reasons it took a while which will become obvious. Oh you know, little things like building his one-off, single-sided swingarm frame to fit a car wheel and designing and fabricating a one-off girder fork. Yeah, that’s a bit beyond most garage builders, but Barnett’s Magazine Online has featured some astounding garage builds and nothing defines a romantic more than a guy keeping the lights on late to make that bracket or fender as perfect as he can do it.  

 

  Curt’s latest build began with a 1978 Harley-Davidson FXS Shovelhead and ended with something else altogether although you can easily see Curt’s a Pro Street fan. I don’t know where the rest of the bike went as all I can see from it is the Shovelhead engine and the 4-speed ratchet top tranny. Somewhere out there is a 1978 FXS factory roller it would seem, but that’s just the way it goes when anything goes. “The concept was to build a bike with a small budget and use as many car parts as possible. The model of bike was purely what was available,” he said adding, “I built the frame and the single -sided swing arm with an integrated oil tank for the engine with the idea of using a car rim for the rear tire. The rear axle is one-off design to accommodate the black chrome TSW wheel. Mark Williams Enterprises did a fantastic job on the rear axle working only from a sketch.”

 

  When you’ve built a wild one-off frame, you just can’t cap the front off with somebody else’s aftermarket fork so Curt took the hopeless romantic’s way out and fabricated a clean-sheet girder fork that compliments the frame tubing nicely. You probably noticed that this ex-FXS fits the pro streeter bill of long and low to a tee as it’s sitting about as low as you can go. I figured it was one more air suspension application, but I should have known that at Anything Goes, anything goes. Curt designed and built his own hydraulic system for the front and rear using industrial components from Hypac Hydraulics instead of using atmospheric gases to do the up and down thing. Pretty cool stuff if I do say so myself. Don’t have the slightest idea if it’s better or not, but it sure is cool.

 

   The front wheel is a motorcycle item, not off a car surprisingly, called the Poker wheel from the fine folk at Southern Motorcycle Works in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Both car and bike wheels are covered in Continental Race Attack rubber and stopped by a pair of Wilwood calipers. Some things are just not worth re-inventing like tires and high-quality brake calipers, although I’m saying that, not Curt, but I think we agree on this one.  

 

    Getting back to the heart of the matter and where this build began, the Shovelhead was reduced to a 3D parts diorama before being completely rebuilt and livened up a bit. “The Shovelhead motor and trans were built in-house except for porting and polishing the head and crank work. The head work by Lee’s Speed Shop in Carver, Minnesota, and the crank work from Gus’ Speed Shop in Newaygo, Michigan, makes the motor run great with minimal upgrades,” said Curt. “It uses an SU carb off of a 1967 Volvo while I designed a 530 open-chain primary and used a 4-speed ratchet top with a 5-speed-style starter.” It wouldn’t be a pro streeter unless the revised Shovelhead did a bit of bellowing under power and the howitzer of an exhaust fulfills that requirement well. The engine’s finish is a simple black vintage look that always appeals to the heart of every Shovelhead lover. All in all, that’s a pip of a Shovel.

 

   If you’re making high-quality custom oil tanks in the first place like Curt, it’s not too much of a stretch to extend that expertise into making bodywork. The fuel tank is as clean as all get-out and interestingly flows down more at the front than at the back. Kinda unusual, but very pretty. The fenders are rubber-hugging body pieces that fit perfectly with not a line out of place. What looks like a regular old oil tank under the seat actually houses the hydraulics and electrics. Remember that bit Curt said earlier about the oil tank in the swing arm? Well it left a big hole that was immediately filled with ugly, but necessary stuff that had to go somewhere and what I’ll refer to as Curt’s faux oil tank under the seat hides it all.

 

   Speaking of the seat, there’s another interesting side story to that as well. Curt’s wife Christie also shares his motorcycle passion and has her own motorcycle related business as well called Buttskinz. As the name implies, it’s all about the butt. The wicked nice leather work with what I’d call a Day of the Dead theme moon is Christie’s doing and it’s a pip too. Ah yes, another case of a romantic at work where a wife is as involved in her husband’s world (or is it the other way around?) as he is and just as talented. Either way, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.

 

   One thing that Curt doesn’t do, so far at least, is paint. Can’t say I blame him as you really have to be set up for that and painting is a whole world unto itself. Curt farmed out his tinwork to buddy Dennis Ruse who sprayed on a coat of PPG Stealth Gray as a base before hitting it with PPG’s Prismatique Gray loaded with shiny bits. “The paint is a PPG paint combo that they say has never been done before,” said Curt. The lack of graphics is refreshing, although Curt says this paintjob pops all sparkly-like in the sun. By the way, Curt did not say “sparkly-like” ─ I did after hearing his description.

 

   So far there’s been only test miles on the bike to make sure everything is ready to hit the road, but Curt said, “Everything came together very well and I don’t plan to change anything. The bike is an eye catcher at shows. It handles very well and runs even better. But I ride it as little as possible because of showing it and it is for sale. I have already started another ground up custom that has been named Already Stoned. It will be another Softail Shovelhead with a 5-speed trans and it has lot more fabrication in regards to sheet metal art.”

 

  Finishing off the story is once again the romantic aspect of naming the bike. Curt and Christie came up with Moonlight Tango and that’s about as romantic sounding as you can get. Actually it doesn’t have anything to do with them tangoing around in the moonlight, although I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they do, but one of their favorite musicians, the legendary underground acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter, Monte Montgomery, who sings Moonlight Tango in the accompanying video. Undoubtedly, Mr. and Mrs. Owen are both hopeless and successful romantics in one and wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

  For more information on Anything Goes, click on http://anythinggoes74.com/ and for more Buttskinz info, click on http://www.buttskinz.com/ . Do what you can to keep romance alive.