Rusty Vintage Sportster Not So Vintage
Story by Wendy Manning
Photos by J. Josh Placa
Everybody likes a bike with a story to tell. The owner of this bike, Craig Gacom, owner of Motorsports Auto Group in Phoenix, Arizona, likes to tell people who ask, “This is a 1928 board track racer. We found it in a barn and it started right up.” But he doesn’t stop there. “You can go on and on with stories that people believe,” he said, laughing. “I told one guy, ‘Yeah, we pulled it out of the bottom of a lake, drained the oil, put fresh gas in it and it ran!’ and he believed me.” The bike really started out as a ’96 Harley-Davidson Sportster. The frame was sectioned underneath the gas tank and a hardtail section was grafted in. Nearly everything on the bike is custom. “It’s a factory Sportster motor, but everything else is handmade,” Craig said. “All the gas tank, sheetmetal — some of it is actual rust and a lot of it has been antiqued to make it look like it’s old.”
The build took about four months, but Craig said the antiquing process is what took the longest. “I got the bike from my friend Mike when it was in the middle of being built, and there are a number of processes on it that I’ve used on other bikes and trucks before,” Craig said. “Some of it’s natural, you spray it with acid and water and it will naturally rust. But then you can use steel wool and water, which makes rusty water, and you brush that on and use some glues to make it adhere. There’s some paint you can use and … well, it’s kind of like an artist who makes a picture and he doesn’t want to tell you his complete formula, but I will say there is so much that is on that bike, so many different steps and procedures. So half of it is natural and half is synthetic.”
Craig said the bikes draws a lot of attention. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “You could park that bike next to some $60-or-$70,000 show bike and they don’t even look at the show bike. They look at this one.” Originally built to match Craig’s 1952 Chevy pickup truck, it certainly draws a crowd with the truck or on its own. “It’s a matched set,” Craig said. “I had a custom ramp made so the bike can go in and out of the bed of the truck. The truck is naturally rusted down with a hot-rod chassis, lowered, and the bike was designed to match it. Everywhere I go with the set, the reaction is unbelievable.”
With its stock Sportster motor the bike is very rideable, Craig said. “You could ride it anywhere. It runs and rides like a normal motorcycle ‘cuz it’s really a Sportster drivetrain and it’s a regular five-speed tranny and shift,” he added. “But there’s things on there that make you think the shifter on the gas tank is fake, but you can use it to shift, you can do it by hand or by foot. That was added on. It’s got a four-plug distributor on there, which is fake and it screws with people’s head because they think it’s a four-plug motor and it’s not. The oil tank was handmade, the meter for the oil tank is handmade. . . almost everything on that bike is handmade,” he said.
The tires are vintage look. “They’re a cross between a flat-track tire and a dirt bike tire,” Craig said. “They’re a radial-style tire, it’s a hardtail frame, so we needed a little bit softer tire to make it ride better. The horn on the bike came off an antique bicycle and it works. “It’s a very irritating very loud horn. When you push down on it real hard, oh my God it just scares people. I found it at a swap meet. I paid a lot of money for it because it’s pretty rare. It went
perfect with the bike, and I didn’t have to antique it, that was natural.”
The bike doesn’t get ridden much because Craig has four other bikes and “a bunch of hot rods” to choose from, so yes, it is for sale. Serious inquiries can email Craig at ae80670@aol.com.
SPECIFICATIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|