STEVE McQUEEN DOIN' IT IN THE DIRT AND DUNES | THE TRIUMPH DESERT RACE BIKE CUSTOM MODIFIED BY BUD EKINS.

Nostalgia on Wheels posted these incredible pictures of Steve McQueen and his Bud Ekins' desert-modified Triumph Bonneville racer from the June 1964 edition of Cycle World Magazine. Original photos by Cal West.

Actor Steve McQueen and his Triumph desert bike in their native habitat.

Many modifications make a desert bike. Crossovers, skid plate, giant filters, etc.

Paper-pack air cleaners are connected to carbs by special a collector box. A Cushy saddle and high pipes are essential in the desert.

IN McQUEEN'S SERVICE

Winning desert races is what this machine was set up for. It is the mount of actor Steve McQueen, who recently won the novice class in a one-hour desert scrambles. The victory only proved what a close look at his Triumph Bonneville suggests: McQueen takes his motorcycling seriously.

It takes some modifications to wing the rough, dusty hare 'n hounds, scrambles and enduros that are popular in the southwestern desert. McQueen's machine was prepared in Bud Ekins' Sherman Oaks, California shop. They started by replacing the stock wheel with a 1956 Triumph hub and 19" wheel to reduce unsprung weight. The forks were fitted with sidecar springs and the rake increased slightly by altering the frame at the steering crown. The rear frame hoop was bent upward to accommodate a 4.00 x 18 Dunlop sports knobby, and to it were welded brackets for the Bates cross-country seat. The bars are by Flanders, with leather hand guards, and the throttle cables run over the tank, through alloy brackets to the twin 1 1/8" Amal carburetors.

A Harlan skidplate protects the underside of the motor, the footpegs were braced, and the rear brake rod was increased to 5/16" diameter and rerouted inside the frame and shock (where sagebrush can't damege it). The oil tank was modified to increase its capacity and bring the filler out the side fom under the seat. It also serves as part of the mudguard, saving weight.

The engine is basically a stock Bonneville but the compression was lowered from 12 : 1 to 8 1/2 : 1 for reliability, and the sagebrush-snagging oil pressure indicator was converted t a pop-off relief valve with a return line back to the oil tank. McQueen runs Jomo TT cams and Lode RL47 Platinum tip plugs.

The important job of filtering all that dirt out of the desert air is handled by paper-pack air cleaners connected by a special collector box to the carbs. This box is finished in black wrinkle-finish paint while the tanks are dark green. The cross-over pipes are Ekins' own design, and are left unplated for better heat dissipation. Perhaps if McQueen were riding this motorcycle in the movie, he would have made his "Great Escape."

--Cycle World Magazine, June 1964

Via Nostalgia on Wheels

KENNY HOWARD PT. II | THE MASTER PAINTER, STRIPER & CUSTOM FABRICATOR ALSO KNOWN AS VON DUTCH

What Ever Happened to Von Dutch? --Modern Cycle magazine, 1965

WORLD FAMOUS BODY STRIPER NOW "IN HIDING" AT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CYCLE SHOP.

Automotive striping, whether for motorcycles or cars, was a dead art form in this country when 15-year-old Von Dutch went to work in George Beerup's motorcycle shop back in the mid forties. Six or seven years later is was a thriving trade carried on by several hundred artistically inclined body men around the country, and no self-respecting Hot Rodder would consider his customizing finished until the striping had been put on.

Few people realize that striping, even to this day is strictly a hand craft. At the Triumph factory, for instance, one elderly gentleman who appears to have been with the company for a century, spends his working day doing nothing but placing the finishing stripes o fenders and fuel tanks by hand. The same is true at the Enfield works... and the Rolls Royce works.

The last automobile hand striping by American car makers was done by General Motors cars in 1938 (excluding, of course, any special bodies created later). Then, nearly 20 years later, youthful car customers brought it back in vogue with some outlandish designs, often believing they were doing something entirely new. The man who started the vogue was a young motorcycle mechanic named Von Dutch.

Today Dutch is "in hiding" as a result of the reputation he built. Working as a mechanic once again, he'll do an occasional striping job on a fender or a tank for a friend. But he made us promise not to identify the shop where he works because "I don't want any damn kids around here trying to get me to stripe their cars."

DUTCH STRIPES WITHOUT ANY PLANNING WHATSOEVER. HE DID THIS JOB IN APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES, TALKING CONSTANTLY WITH PHOTOGRAPHER JIM SULLIVAN. DUTCH DIPS HIS DAGGER STRIPING BRUSH ON HIS FAVORITE PALET, THE TELEPHONE BOOK.

At 15, Von Dutch was what he called "the gunk boy" in George Beerup's motorcycle shop in Southern California when he took one of the bikes home, painted it and striped it with his father's brushes. (The elder Von Dutch had done some motorcycle striping and worked mostly as a sign painter.) When he brought the bike back, Beerup refused to believe he had done the striping himself. So he got the brushes and did another job. As soon as Beerup saw what he could do, he took Dutch off mechanical work and put him to painting and striping, and for the next decade he built a reputation he didn't want.

"I'm a mechanic first," he says. "If I had my way, I'd be a gunsmith, but there isn't enough of that kind of work to make a living. I like to make things out of metal, because metal is forever. When you paint something, how long does it last? A few years, and then it's gone."

ABOVE, TOP: IN CASE YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE IT, THAT'S AN M-1 DUTCH IS POLISHING. THIS IS DUTCH'S IDEA FOR A SCOTT-POWERED MACHINE USING REYNOLDS TYPE FORKS AND MODERN REAR SUSPENSION, WITH DISC BRAKES.

ABOVE RIGHT: ANOTHER OF DUTCH'S DREAMS, UTILIZING A 750cc INLINE FOUR WITH "OFFENHAUSER CHARACTERISTICS," EARLES TYPE FORKS AND THE SWING ARM OF CAST MAGNESIUM FORMING A CHAIN CASE, THE WHOLE AFAIR SWINGING ON THE AXIS OF THE COUNTERSHAFT TO ELIMINATE CHAIN DEFLECTION.

ABOVE, BOTTOM: DUTCH ON HIS BABY, A 1930 SCOTT "FLYING SQUIRREL" 600cc WATER COOLED TWO STROKER. With 5 1/:1 COMPRESSION IT DEVELOPS 33 hp AT 4500 rpm. COMPLETELY RESTORED, IT IS UNMODIFIED EXCEPT FOR A SEPARATE OIL TANK, SUPPLYING LUBRICANT UNDER PRESSURE TO MAINS AND CRANKPINS.

For the next several years, Dutch worked at nothing but motorcycle painting and striping moving from shop to shop, "saturating each area," he says. By the mid fifties he had still not touched a car, but had painted and striped thousands of bikes. After a year or so of building his reputation,

"Striping cars started as a gag when I was working Al Titus' motorcycle shop down in Lynwood," Dutch says. Then the idea ballooned. He was hired to stripe some custom jobs for one of the auto shows, an while there was approached by a man known as the Crazy Arab who thought it could be worked into a full time occupation. Dutch didn't believe it, but he tried it, and for the next three years he worked at it until "it nearly drove me out of my mind."

When Von Dutch quit striping around 1958, his talents were still in great demand. Customers all over the country had heard of him, and cars had come as far away as the East Coast to be striped. Moreover, when a car owner came to him, he didn't tell Dutch what he wanted: he just told him how much time he was willing to purchase. The designs were up to Dutch, and some of them were as wild and far out as his eccentric imagination. He had hundreds of imitators, and when you went to a body shop to inquire about such work, you didn't ask if they knew how to stripe, you asked if they knew how to "Von Dutch."

Despite this, Dutch never made any money from striping, because money is something he hates, as unorthodox as that sounds. After a year or so of building his reputation, he doubled his hourly rate just to weed out some of the customers. So many were coming to him that he couldn't stand it anymore. But the gambit didn't work. No matter how much he charged, he still did better work for less money than any competitor.

He could have charged much more. He could have charged $20 an hour and gotten away with it easily back then. Moreover, he could have done six or eight cars a day, if he really wanted to work at all. But Dutch is blissfully devoid of the driving force that motivates most Americans. He couldn't care less about material possessions.

"I make a point of staying right at the bridge of poverty. I don't have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I own are the ones I have on. I don't have anything else to put on my feet. I don't spend money on unnecessary stuff, so i don't have to have a lot of money. I don't need it. I keep as poor as I can and just get along. I like that. I believe that's the way it's meant to be. There's a struggle you have to go through, and if you make a lot of money, it doesn't make the struggle go away. It just makes it more complicated. If you keep poor, the struggle is simple. "

"That's why I never overcharged anybody, or made this thing commercial. You can't do good work if you're thinking about the money angle all the time. To me the work is important; that's number one."

Most of Dutch's custom work is now done exclusively on antique motorcycles belonging to the shop where he works. The shop is not known to have a painting department, but a fellow in North Carolina, who knew where to go, sent them a tank and fenders from a brand new Triumph to be painted as they saw fit, and Dutch did the work.

Dutch's personal motorcycle is a 1930 Scott twin, a two stroke water-cooled job that most motorcycle enthusiasts had never heard of. When something wears out on it, he manufactures the part himself. He also has a customized Honda, of which he says, "I had to paint it so I could find it. There are so many around that mine was getting lost in the crowd."

Dutch's whole life is more or less devoted to individualism, to expressing himself. He says he can no longer take paint work as a steady diet, but once you get him started on a project, you can't stop him until his imagination is temporarily worn out. He takes plain metal and turns it into a gun of his own design. Lately, he has taken to engraving designs on Aluminum fenders.

There seems to be no end to his creative aptitudes, despite his refusal to use them for profit. One of his co-workers calls him "That artistic creep," but in may ways he's the Einstein of the motor world.

VINTAGE SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ca. 1966 | STEVE McQUEEN REVIEWS THE HOTTEST NEW GT's

I STILL GET GOOSE PIMPLES

BY STEVE McQUEEN WITH KEN RUDEEN

A STAR AMONG FAST FRIENDS

STEVE McQUEEN IS SOMEWHAT BETTER KNOWN AS A MOVIE ACTOR ("THE GREAT ESCAPE," "NEVADA SMITH") THAN AS A DRIVER OF FAST CARS. BUT AS HE DEMONSTRATES BELOW, CORNERING SMARTLY IN THE NEW JAGUAR 2+2, AND AS HE SAYS IN THE STORY BEGINNING ON PAGE 39, HE "AIN'T A BAD DRIVER, EITHER." FORMERLY A SPORTS CAR RACER OF PROMISE, McQUEEN WAS ORDERED OFF THE TRACKS BY HIS STUDIO, ON THE THEORY HIS BEAUTIFULLY BATTERED FACE NEEDS NO FURTHER CORRUGATIONS. HE HAS NOT LOST HIS ENTHUSIASM FOR SWIFT MOTORING, HOWEVER, AND WHEN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ASKED HIM TO DRIVE EIGHT OF THE WORLD'S MOST DISTINGUISHED GRAND TOURING CARS ON THE RACE COURSE AT RIVERSIDE, CALIF., HE WAS, AS THEY SAY, FLAT OUT. KEEP READING FOR PICTURES OF STEVE IN A REAL-LIFE ROLE, AND FOR HIS ANALYSIS OF THE STATE OF THE GRAND TOURING ART IN THIS MIDSUMMER 1966.

SIZING UP THE NEW JAGUAR 2+2, DRIVER McQUEEN FOUND IT "VERY SMOOTH DOWN THE BACK STRAIGHT AT 110 MPH," YET STILL SUITABLE FOR TRIPS WITH THE FAMILY. MRS. McQUEEN, HE REPORTED, WAS "KIND OF KEEN ON IT."

THE CORVETTE STING RAY (ABOVE) IMPRESSED McQUEEN -- AND SURPRISED HIM A LITTLE -- WITH ITS POWER, FINE HANDLING AND ACCURATE STEERING. TOP MODEL ($5,538) HAS A BIG 427-INCH V-8 ENGINE AND HEAVY DUTY SUSPENSION.

THE FERRARI 275 GTS WITH A 3.3-LITER V-12 ENGINE, REAR-MOUNTED FIVE SPEED GEARBOX AND PININFARINA COACHWORK DREW A WORSHIPFUL "WOW!" FROM STEVE, WHO REGARDS FERRARI AS A SUPREME ENGINEER. PRICE: $14,500.

THE ALFA ROMEO SPIDER (ABOVE), THE LATEST MODEL FROM SMALL, DISTINGUISHED MILAN WORKS, CORNERED BRILLIANTLY, AND HAD SUPERIOR BRAKES. McQUEEN ALSO ADMIRED ITS LOOKS, BUT WOULD HAVE LIKED MORE POWER IN A $4,000 CAR.

THE PORSCHE 911 DELIGHTED McQUEEN WITH PREDICTABLE HANDLING IN FURIOUS CORNERING, PROVING THAT PORSCHE HAS SOLVED THE OVERSTEER PROBLEMS STEVE REMEMBERED FROM HIS RACING DAYS. THIS REAR-ENGINED 6 COSTS: $6,450.

THE ASTON MARTIN DB6 (ABOVE), THE MOST EXPENSIVE MODEL TESTED ($15,400), STRUCK McQUEEN AS A "GENTLEMAN'S CAR" IN ITS CLEAN DESIGN, LUXURIOUS APPOINTMENTS, AND VIRILE PERFORMANCE, BUT FIFTH GEAR WAS DISAPPOINTING.

THE SHELBY COBRA 427 WAS "A REAL STOPLIGHT BANDIT" ON ACCELERATION, ATTESTING TO THE STRENGTH OF ITS 7-LITER PUSHROD V-8. McQUEEN WAS LESS PLEASED WITH ITS HANDLING, AND FELT THE SEAT BELT POSITIONING SHOULD BE IMPROVED. PRICE: $7,495.

THE MERCEDES 230SL WAS HANDSOME AND HANDLED WELL. "I DROVE IT HARD AND GOT IT OUT OF SHAPE A BIT," McQUEEN NOTED, "AND IT BEHAVED VERY NICELY, NEVER TRIED TO BITE ME." THE MERCEDES AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION WAS THE BEST FROM EUROPE HE HAD SEEN, "VERY SUITABLE FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE TO SHIFT."

VIA STEVE McQUEEN ONLINE

MAD MAX BUBECK & HIS INDIAN CHOUT | HELL ON HYBRID WHEELS

Max Bubeck (below) sitting on his 135.58mph hybrid Indian Chief/Scout that he rode at Rosamond Dry Lake on June 27th, 1948. The Pop Shunk-built "Chout" is as lean and mean as a straight razor except for two big-assed carburetors that look big enough to pluck poultry. Bubeck's "Chout" still holds the record for the world's fastest unfaired Indian motorcycle.

“Mad Max” Bubeck made a name for himself dominating the enduro scene from the 1930s to the 1970s. Bubeck was also a speed racer & builder who in June of 1948 rode his Indian “Chout” (an Indian Chief 80 c.i. engine jammed into the smaller & lighter Scout frame) to a record speed of 135.58 mph on the Rosamond Dry Lake north of Los Angeles. It’s a record that still stands for an unstreamlined, normally aspirated 80 cubic inch displacement Indian motorycle. After retiring from competition in the late-1970s, Bubeck continued to be active in motorcycling, doing everything from restoring classic Indian motorcycles to sponsoring antique motorcycle meetings.

One of Bubeck’s most popular wins came in 1950 aboard the new Indian Warrior. That year, he won the Cactus Derby, a long-distance desert race and mountain race originated in Riverside, California. The race was unique in that it started at midnight. That year, Bubeck’s bike lost its lighting barely an hour into the race. He managed to continue by riding with other riders and using their lights. A few times he lost touch with the other riders and rode in complete darkness. In that same event, a long, slow-moving freight train was blocking a crossing. Bubeck sped ahead of the train and crossed the tracks so as to not lose too much time. Despite the darkness, the trains and riding a supposedly uncompetitive bike, Bubeck still managed to win the event. It went down as one of the most memorable victories in his career.

Being born in the LA area was a very fortunate happening for me. By 1933 at age 15, I already had my first motorcycle, a 1930 101 Scout. It wasn’t long before I got acquainted with the local “hounds,” as we were known then, and every week end we would be off to some event, usually a TT race, field event, or beer bust.

One of the favorite spots was about 15 miles east of LA at Sam Parriots’ in Puente Ranch. The LA 45 Club put on steak feeds and field meets at least twice a year and one of the big attractions was a straight, blacktop road that ran for a mile, then made a dogleg turn to the right, then left and up a hill. This was known as the Puente Strip.

By 1937, we would convene our motorcycles in “drag outs” or speed runs at least once a month on early Saturday mornings before there was any traffic. By 1939, Frank Christian had built an electric-eye timing clock so we could get accurate times. This was a great help to the local racers and speed-trialers to check their machines for performance. It was in October of 1941 and I left home early Saturday morning on my ‘39 Indian Four, headed for Puente. The route was east on Valley Blvd to Fifth Street, in Puente, a right turn across some railroad tracks, then a left turn onto the strip.

As I came around the corner at about 30mph, I saw three machines just starting on a run. The one on the left was Ed Kretz on his #38 Sport Scout race bike, and the others were a couple of Harleys. I thought, why not see if I could catch them, so I pulled the Four back into second gear and got on it. I was gaining on all three, and soon passed the Harleys but Kretz was still ahead. I was slightly to the left of him and my front wheel was along side his rear wheel, both of us still in second at 75mph. Ed looked over his right shoulder, saw the Harleys behind him, snapped into high gear and laid down on the Scout. I did the same on my Four and the Scout started to pull away at 90mph. So I edged into his draft about three feet behind and managed to stay there at over 100mph. The immediate reaction after clearing the timing traps was to sit up and get on the brakes because that dogleg was pretty sharp at that speed.

So Kretz did the usual and turned around to see how far ahead he was of the Harleys. I still laugh when I think of the look on his face when he saw me three feet behind him! His eyes bugged out and almost pushed his goggles off! As we slowed, I came alongside of him and he said, :Where did you come from?” I said, “I was there all the time.” My speedometer stop-hand read 114mph and when we got back to the timer, we found out we had hit 112.50mph.

I later took the Four through at 108.43mph, without the benefit of the draft—this was just as I rode it on the streets—headlights, fenders, saddlebags, the works. Sam Parriot tried to talk me into talking off the extra garbage and trying again, but I was happy with that speed. Remember—this was 1941, when few machines would clock an honest 100mph.

Kretz asked me to take his Scout through and see what I could get out of it, as I was about 40 pounds lighter. It clocked exactly 112.50mph with me on it, too. This was the week before the big 200 mile race at Oakland. Kretz had the best qualifying time at 94mph on the very rough one mile track, paved with a low bank on the turns. Kretz, of course, had the pole and at the end of the first lap had a 200 foot lead, which kept increasing every lap until he lapped the second-place rider on the 32nd lap.

Soon after that, there was a very bad accident in the south turn, which resulted in two deaths and several others taken out of the race. How Ed didn’t go down is a miracle of some sort. Movies taken of the accident make you shake your head in wonder that Kretz didn’t end up in the pile of motorcycles sliding into the fence. Later, when asked how he got through, Ed said he closed his eyes and held on. Anyway, Ed managed to get through the mess without going down and lead until the 117th lap, when his front chain broke and put him out of the race. Front chains weren’t supposed to break on Indians with the oil bath but his did. I guess Indian must’ve gotten a batch of bad chains, improperly heat-treated.

Those were great days! As well as riding my ‘39 Four on the streets and on trips, I also rode the Four in cross-country events like the Greenhorn 500-miler. I had the privilege of travelling with Ed Kretz, and sometimes Jimmy Kelly another good Indian rider. We usually piled into the car late on Saturday, and drove long, hard, and late at night to make some Sunday racemeet at some distance from LA. Many were the pranks and jokes. The world was our playground and we would never grow old.

–Max Bubeck as told to Jerry Hatfield in 2000.

ROGUES, SAILORS & ANCIENT MARINERS | A HISTORICAL VIEW OF NAUTICAL TATTOOS

In the early 19th century, as more and more sailors returned from distant lands, tattooing had become highly popular in the British Navy. It spread even to the British admiralty, which has for a long time included certain royals who obtained rank. Field Marshal Earl Roberts is rumored to have expressed the opinion that “every officer in the British army should be tattooed with his regimental crest.” It not only boosted morale among the ranks, but it proved useful when identifying casualties. The Prince of Wales was tattooed with a Jerusalem Cross after visiting the Holy Land in 1862. Then, his sons, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of York (later King George V) were tattooed by the Japanese master tattooist, Hori Chiyo.

Although much of maritime tattooing took place on board ship, sailor to sailor– the craze spawned an industry of tattoo parlors in port cities in Britain and the United States, and indeed, around the world. Many of the proprietors of early tattoo shops were sailors who had come ashore. Famed British tattoo artist George Burchett learned his craft with an early stint in the service. By the end of the 19th century, it was estimated that ninety percent of British and American sailors had tattoos, according to some sources.

The anchor remains the favorite tattoo of sailors, and is still one of the most popular designs worldwide– usually placed on the upper arm, just like Popeye. Tattoos of a sailor’s ship were like a badge of honor that proudly displayed his feelings of patriotism and comradery. Roosters tattooed on the foot were a common motif in the early days– they acted as charms to protect against drowning. And of course, Images of naked women were a major hit too– that is until the brass issued their ‘obscene’ warning. After that, naval applicants could have their hopes dashed by showing up with too much ’skin’ on their skin. Tattoo artists did a booming business covering the scantily-clad hula girls with grass skirts.