HUSQVARNA | THE SCREAMIN' SWEDE SUPER-BIKE THAT STARTED A MOTORCYCLE RACING REVOLUTION

The bike that got American motocross off the ground-- the 1963 Husqvarna (Husky) Racer. This unrestored bike is No. 59 of just 100 250cc race machines Husqvarna built in ’63.

With its signature red and chrome glistening gas tank, the Husqvarna (or “Husky” as it’s affectionately known) was a stunning beauty of a bike, and a mud-slinging beast on the American motocross circuit. Back in the 1960s, the increasingly popular sport of American motocross was bogged down by clumsily modified (not to mention heavy) Harley-Davidson, Triumph & BSA road bikes. It was lumbering in antiquity and in dire need of innovation. Enter Edison Dye.

While on a motorcycle tour of Europe, Dye took particular note of European motocross and the lighter-weight, nimble, two-stroke bikes that were in stark contrast to the American scene. Swedish maker Husqvarna particulary stood out with their alloy engine components, and distinctive exhaust. He asked motorcycling legend Malcolm Smith (Steve McQueen’s riding chum in “On Any Sunday”) to take a Husky and put it through its paces for him. Upon Smith’s glowing review, Edison Dye decided to sign on as Husqvarna’s U.S. importer. The Screamin’ Swede was about to take American motocross by storm.

Heikki Mikkola, the “Flyin’ Finn” was one of the most popular and feared motocross racers of the 1970s. During his illustrious career, Mikkola collected four World Grand Prix Motocross Championship titles. In 1974 he won the World Grand Prix 500cc Championship on a Husqvarna.

In the early 1970s, Steve McQueen was the man (still is). He was the highest-paid star of the silver screen, a major sex symbol and an obsessed motorhead with a staggering collection of sports cars, four-wheelers and of course– bikes. So when McQueen dropped his trusty Triumph in favor of the new Husqvarna 400 Cross – overnight Husky became the only off-road bike that seemed to matter. The Husky also got a starring role alongside Steve McQueen (as well as riding legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith) in Director Bruce Brown’s classic– ”On Any Sunday”.

Bruce Brown recounts working with McQueen and the significant impact the film had–

“I remember going to Ascot Park and watching the dirt track races,” Brown said. “I met a few of the racers and was struck by how approachable and how nice most of these guys were. It wasn’t at all like the image a lot of people had about motorcycle riders in those days. I just thought it would be neat to do a movie about motorcycle racing and the people involved.”

Even though Brown already had a successful movie to his credit, he found that financing a film on motorcycling wasn’t going to be easy.

The Husqvarna 400 Cross-- The bike Steve McQueen made an overnight legend, and highly collectible.

“I talked to a few folks and knew that Steve McQueen was a rider,” Brown said. “Even though I’d never met him, I set up a meeting to talk about doing ‘On Any Sunday.’ We talked about the concept of the film, which he really liked. Then he asked what I wanted him to do in the film. I told him I wanted him to finance it. He laughed and told me he acted in films, he didn’t finance them. I then jokingly told him, ‘Alright, then, you can’t be in the movie.’

“The next day after the meeting, I got a call and it was McQueen. He told me to go ahead and get the ball rolling with movie — he’d back it.”

At one point, Brown found a perfect location for a sunset beach riding shot — Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.

“I figured there would be no way to get approval to film on the Marine base,” Brown recalls. “Steve McQueen said he’d see what he could find out. The next day he called and told to contact some General and the next thing you know we are shooting the beach sequences. It was pretty amazing the doors he was able to open.”

“On Any Sunday” seemed to strike a chord with youngsters. Kids would hide in movie theater bathrooms between showings so they could watch the film two or three times in one day. Thousands of kids across the country started saving money from their paper routes and summer jobs to buy a minibike after being inspired by the movie.

1970 Husqvarna 250 eight-speed, just like the one ridden by Malcolm Smith in”On Any Sunday”. “The Husky 250 eight-speed was just a really easy bike to ride,” Smith recalls. “It wasn’t super powerful, but on the fast roads of Elsinore, I could go over 100 mph. And because of the eight-speed gearbox, I could easily negotiate the tight stuff.”

“I think many people changed their minds about motorcyclists after watching the movie,” Brown said. “One particularly funny story was told by Mert Lawwill. Being a motorcycle racer he was sort of considered the Black Sheep of the family. The old patriarch of the family, Lawwill’s grandmother-in-law, went to see the movie and in the middle of one of the scenes featuring Lawwill she stood up and shouted, ‘That’s my grandson!’ Suddenly he was the big hero of the family.”

Malcolm Smith flat-out gettin’ after it, Husqvarna style.

Steve McQueen on his Husqvarna 1971 400cc Cross. This is the bike that Steve rode on screen -- "On Any Sunday".

Steve McQueen romping on his Husqvarna 400 Cross –Sports Illustrated, 1971.

The legendary motorcyclist and Husqvarna rider– Malcolm Smith.

Wrenchmonkees’ insane flat track inspired Harley Davidson Sportster with an old Husqvarna tank.

"REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE" CURSE |THE CURIOUS CAST OF CHARACTERS AND TRAGIC DEATHS BEHIND THE 1955 FILM

James Dean as Jim Stark in "Rebel Without a Cause"

The 1950s were a very cool time, I only wish I could have experienced them for myself. It is a time in American pop culture that is highly idealized for it’s music, fashion, style and culture. Everyone looked incredible, and seemed so squeaky clean– but you just knew there had to be much more going on behind the scenes. Rebel Without a Cause is one of the most iconic films from that era, and the stories behind the making of the James Dean classic are as incredible as the movie itself. And truth be told, Dean was not the only rebel on the set. Nicholas Ray, Dennis Hopper, Nick Adams and Natalie Wood definitely held there own. There is a great article from the Vanity Fair archives that is definitely required reading if you’re a fan of the film. They get into some of the details about the Rebel wardrobe and off-screen shenanigans that I have excerpted and added to–

Natalie Wood, James Dean, and Nick Ray

Striving for authenticity in every detail, Ray turned his attention to the high-school gang members who surround and threaten Jim Stark. One of the actors he interviewed was Frank Mazzola, the leader of a real gang called the Athenians. Mazzola had been weeded out by the casting director but muscled his way in to see Ray anyway. “They thought that because I was in a gang, I might create problems on the set. I came out of the Depression, really,” Mazzola explains in a West Hollywood restaurant, his hair, still jet black, tied back in a ponytail. “We didn’t have any pop culture. The guys that we loved flew, like my uncle, a pilot in the Second World War. Everybody I knew wanted to grow up and fly P-38s.… And so these clubs started forming—ours was called the Athenians. We defended our turf. You’d probably get in two or three fights a night just defending Hollywood. It was like a sport.”

James Dean and Natalie Wood on the set of "Rebel Without a Cause"

Ray not only cast Mazzola, he gave him an office on the Warner lot, from which he could serve as technical adviser on gang behavior. Ray instructed him to hang out with Dean and take him to meetings of the Athenians. “I want you to get us the cars, tell us what kind of clothes we should be wearing,” Ray told him. Mazzola had the wardrobe department buy the gang’s clothes at Matson’s, on Hollywood Boulevard, where the Athenians bought their club jackets. The wardrobe department then soiled and laundered more than 400 pairs of Levi 501s for the cast. –I would love to get my hands on those old selvedge jeans.

The iconic Baracuta jacket is often credited as the famous red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause -- but some say it was a McGregor or fabricated by the film’s costume designer Moss Mabry, as he himself claims. There are accounts from staffers that it was bought at Matson’s men’s store for use in the 1955 film, but costume designer Moss Mabry has insisted all along that he made three of the jackets from a bolt of red nylon, and painstakingly worked on the size of the collar and the placement of the pockets. “Even though the jacket looked simple,” Mabry said, “it wasn’t.” Mabry even designed a special bra for Natalie Wood for the film Rebel, which became known as the “Natalie Wood bra,” though he declined to reveal the secret of its design.

Dennis Hopper and Nick Ray many years after "Rebel Without a Cause"

Natalie Wood, who was only 16 at the time, soon became involved with director Nicholas Ray. Wood’s affair with Ray awakened her sexuality—and emboldened her to initiate another love affair, this one with Dennis Hopper, who had been cast as Goon. “I was astonished,” Hopper later said. “I came from a very conventional, middle-class family in San Diego … and this was the 1950s, when girls who’d turned sixteen only a few months earlier just didn’t do things like that.” The sexually charged situation created ill will between Ray and Hopper. Maria Gurdin, having found out about both affairs, complained to Warner Bros. that Hopper was involved with her daughter; ever ambitious for Natalie, she didn’t mention that Ray was as well. “I was furious with [Nick Ray],” Hopper said about the incident. “The studio came down on me, and he came out of it as pure as snow.” The two ran into each other years later at a Grateful Dead concert and buried the hatchet. Hopper went as far as to help the grizzled Ray get back on his feet, and even helped him land a job teaching film students at Binghamton University. Nicholas Ray is a fascinating character and some of the details of his life are pretty heavy stuff– read the Vanity Fair article and find out more.

James Dean and Sal Mineo

Sal Mineo—so affecting as the essentially fatherless outcast Plato—later commented that he had portrayed the first gay teenager on film. There are little clues: the photograph of Alan Ladd taped to his locker door, his longing looks at Jim Stark, his disguised declaration of love in the abandoned mansion. Ray was aware of Dean’s bisexuality and encouraged the actor to use it in certain scenes. Dean instructed Mineo, “Look at me the way I look at Natalie,” for their intimate scene in the Getty mansion. It had to be subtle. A Production Code officer had written in a memo to Jack L. Warner on March 22, “It is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.” In real life Mineo was gay, and it is even rumored that he and Ray (who was bisexual) also had a tryst while filming Rebel.

Dennis Hopper and James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause"

The real life drama behind "Rebel Without a Cause" is still a riddle wrapped in mystery. James Dean's fatal car crash one month before the film's release resulted in the beginning of the "Rebel death curse" theories, which were further fueled when Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo and Nick Adams also suffered eerie, premature deaths. There's still plenty of talk and speculation about who actually slept with whom -- and the controversy that clouds the issue of who was the true voice behind "Rebel Without a Cause" — Nicholas Ray or James Dean?