Posts tagged "Paul Teutul"

Jason Pohl (Orange County Choppers) pracuje se Solidworks.

Read more…

Custom Motorcycle Fan

Article by Ryan Tessevich

At the turn of the new millennium a new obsession invaded everyday American culture. This fad was custom bike building. Shows such as American Chopper and Monster garage became huge hits and Jesse James (the custom bike builder, not the outlaw) and Paul Teutul Senior became household names. Everyone was now a custom motorcycle fan and dreamed of riding around on a modified Harley Davidson that was customized by some top name designer. I, like the rest of the country was swept up in Chopper mania.

Custom motorcycle fans have been around a lot longer than just a few years ago however, and will no doubt still be around when the fad finally disappears from the collective public consciousness altogether.

The idea of building custom bikes began after world war two when the veterans came back and found the huge, clunky motorcycles put out by the Harley Davidson and Indian companies unsatisfying. They began to “chop” off the fenders and remove anything deemed unnecessary in order to make the bike faster and more streamlined. Soon thereafter these customized choppers started to become popular.

The movie, Easy Rider, thrust the idea of the customized chopper onto the public consciousness and the custom motorcycle fan base began to grow. Pretty soon, designers began to take over the domain of the backyard mechanic turning the art of motorcycle customization into a big business. Custom motorcycle fans no longer needed to chop up and individualize their own bikes. They could instead, go to a top name designer and get a unique bike built to their specifications.

Then, cable television caught on to this growing trend and launched a series of extremely popular television shows that featured people building these customized bikes. These shows initiated a bandwagon effect and soon everyone in Hollywood became a custom bike enthusiast over night. Talk shows were booked and motorcycles rallies started to turn into large family oriented events.

But, who are the true custom motorcycle fans? The television shows soon got old and people began tuning out. Hollywood celebrities quite bugging Jesse James for their very own Custom bike and the multitude of custom chop shops that had opened overnight to cash in on the latest craze soon began shutting down. Custom motorcycle fans were no longer found on every street corner, but they exist still. Now that the fad has past, true fans of the custom motorcycle trend can now enjoy their obsession in peace. Bike Rallies are still being held across the country and demo shows featuring the latest bikes built by the industry’s top designers still draw huge number of crowds. Sure, the Teutuls are no longer riding their latest creations into football stadiums to the cheers of thousands of fans, but they are still building bikes.

OCC Choppers

I’ve been watching “American Chopper” since it first went on the air. I was fascinated by Paul Teutul and his crew and what they were able to do building choppers by hand. Paul Jr’s design work was phenomenal. The them bikes were incredibly innovative and the family drama was mesmerizing.

American Chopper and Orange County Choppers made a lot of people yearn to ride a motorcycle even if they couldn’t afford a custom chopper. Paulie and Vinnie also inspired a lot of bike owners, myself included, to take our stock bikes and make choppers out of them. Where a look at Jesse James choppers may have given us a slight inkling, the new program from Discovery put us over the edge.

OCC Splitback Chopper

Like it or not, the show changed the way custom choppers were built in this country. The theme bikes from OCC, once very unique items, were now popping up in chopper shops all over the country. Every one was doing some sort of tribute chopper and putting it out there for all the world to see. It not only changed the way bike builders built choppers it also led the way for the huge, if not temporary in some cases, success of companies like Big Bear Choppers, Big Dog Choppers, and American Ironhorse who all were pumping out production custom bikes as fast as they could sell them.

What had once been a bunch of guys taking  Harley Davidson motorcycles and putting a grinder and a welder to them to produce one of a kind choppers was now an assembly line process turning out custom choppers the way Henry Ford turned out the Model A. I believe this may have ruined the cutsom motorcycle industry and custom choppers in general. In fact I actually created a single page blog, just to discuss it: Custom Motorcycles.

As everyone now knows, Vinnie and Cody have left the business to form their own company V-Force Customs. It appeared from that episode that Vinne had finally had enough of Paulie and OCC taking all the credit for all his work. And you guys may remember Mike Campo from the early shows. I actually talked with him in person a few years back and he basically told me that he left because he was sick of Paulie and couldn’t work with him any more. Remember the Statue of Liberty Chopper?

OCC Gillette Chopper

Anyway, Paul Teutul Sr has built an empire with OCC and I have had the pleasure of personally viewing many of these bikes in person and can tell you that the detail is incredible, just like everyone says on the show, and after comparing their choppers against other famous custom bike builders I can assure you that as far as quality goes no builder’s bikes that I have seen in person come close to Orange County’s bikes. In fact I’ve seen a lot of bikes built on Biker Buildoff that are literally falling apart now.

We all know that OCC had lost both Paulie and Mikey because of conflicts with Paul Sr and from what I’m seeing on the show, Rick and the remaining Mike need a freaking raise. I believe some of the last few bikes they have built have been some of their best. They’re getting back to what choppers are and away from the whole “cartoon” look of some of the last theme bikes that were done when Paul Jr was still with them. Is it possible that the shop that ruined custom choppers might actually be the one that brings them back? Time will tell.