Most Hartz Bros builds usually involve keeping a stock frame intact with a bolt-on or welded-on hardtail adding a bit of spice to not only keep the cost very reasonable and the titling easy, but also to make any changes reversible if the owner gets the restoration bug. That was definitely not the case with our feature bike they built for John Young called John’s High Dollar Chop. The name says it all. John wanted what he wanted and budgets and purists be damned. Getting exactly what he wanted evolved into a three-year build as he decided to do all the chasing of parts, pieces, and outside services.

“John came to me with a basket case consisting of a frame, two wheels, and a motor. It was a pretty rare bike from what I’ve read, a 1965 TR6 SR. I told him that the first thing he had to do was completely go through and rebuild the motor and the sticker shock kinda shocked him,” said Josh. “He wanted to buy everything for the build himself so he started his research and started ordering stuff. A year later, I’ve had the motor on the shelf all polished and brand new and I was worried about it just sitting there so long.”

Holding up the build was John’s insistence on having a custom-built frame replace the stock Triumph’s. “When the frame finally came in, we found we couldn’t fit the motor in, nothing lined up. So it was back to the builder and after a few more months, everything got straightened out,” said Josh. “When he finally got everything to build the bike, I had the bike built seven or eight days later because I don’t mess around. It just fell right together because I mocked it up properly, just like you’re supposed to. When John saw it done so quickly, he said, ‘You’ve got to be shitting me!’ Anytime a customer insists on buying his own parts, I try to stop them and say, ‘Listen, this is what I do every day.’ “

One thing John scored big time on was soliciting and securing a paintjob by Justin Barnes of JB Grafix in Marlboro, New York. In case you’ve forgotten, Justin was featured on American Chopper where he turned out one cool paintjob after another in an absurdly short amount of time. “John gave him a couple of ideas mostly like what color he wanted and Justin took it from there. I just don’t know how Justin pulled it off because it’s got so much going on,” said Josh. “I was completely blown away. Justin – that kid’s amazing, he really is. You can look at this thing for hours and go back and find stuff you missed the first time.” Too often intricate paintjobs either get lost in a build or totally screw up the visual flow, but Justin somehow managed to produce the perfect paint for John’s Triumph that doesn’t shout out, “Hey, look at me!” but entices you to get up close and see what’s going on.

What John ended up with is an arresting statement of what we all think bikes looked like back when, but rarely did unless somebody with a first name like Arlen or Denver built it. Local choppers were often a hodge-podge of crudely modified parts with a total disregard of actual function or safety. Such is not the case with a Hartz Bros build. “I just do things the way they’re supposed to be done. I over build stuff and I don’t think there’s such a thing as overkill on a motorcycle. I only drove it to John’s house, but it ran real good, had good power, and didn’t miss a beat. I had it up to 80mph and it was cruising right along as straight as an arrow. Yeah, I’m happy with the way it came out,” said Josh adding, “even though we were skeptical the whole time.”