V8 Choppers Trike

Story by Mark Barnett, Photos by Frank Rangel

Normally you have to go to rallies to find the most interesting bikes; they naturally seem to all congregate at the big shows. But sometimes, just sitting here in our little corner of Texas, the bikes just stop in for a rest, perhaps for a water break before the hundreds of miles of desert on either side of us. Case in point, a man named David Ward dropped in who owns four V8 Choppers brand bikes and trikes. He showed us three of them that happened to be in the trailer and told us a little about the operation that builds them.

A man named Stan Hughes working out of Miami, Oklahoma puts in high horsepower, Dart Chevrolet engines in these chopper frames. He uses the hopped up Chevy engines since he had connections with the car racing world. The bikes are good looking; the two-wheelers look like choppers and a lot of attention is paid to both the paint work and the accessories. The trike featured here comes with a two-speed transmission and a reverse gear. It too, has a chopper look to it with the long, American Suspension forks. The engine is the key feature in the V8 Choppers line, they come with a 372”, 450-horsepower Chevrolet Dart engine. Many options are available, including all-aluminum small blocks with nitrous. David ran his own personal trike through the quarter mile at ten seconds flat, 144 mph. But he has a 436” bored out small block with nitrous in his trike, the stocker might take an extra second or so. The spec sheet reads like a who’s who of the oval car racing world: Edelbrock, Mallory, and Wilwood with some big names in the motorcycle world like Joker and Alligator Bob as well.

V8 Choppers has two wheelers with the weight as low as 850 lbs, quite a bit lighter than the equivalent Boss Hoss models. The bike is a hardtail and you need to run the rear tire a little soft, though there is quite a bit of give in the long chassis. The trike is suspended in the rear. This teal trike, owned by a woman named Deidra Penny by the way, retails for close to $50K, but there is a touring trike in the works with a target price a little above or below $40K. You can check them out at www.v8choppers.com.