AutoAmbush.com » custom choppers

Brimstone Quadracycle – Quad Rod

Jason — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:00:44 +0000

By Bill McGuire

Photography by Wes AlIison

Good news, HOT ROD readers. You just thought you were crazy. In truth, you’re only mildly colorful. Oh sure, you’ve often reflected on how your taste in transportation trends toward the outlandish, if not the extreme. And given all those long hours you’ve spent in the garage building such machines, friends and family have mentioned (frequently) how your behavior might be described as, well, obsessive. However, when it comes to over-the-top road vehicles and the mentally questionable commitment required to construct them, you’d have a hard time matching Joe Skonecki. Just look at what he built. Compared with him, you can consider yourself almost normal. This dude is totally nuts, and we mean that in the best possible way. We come in praise of this form of insanity.

Via: Hotrod.com

Russell Mitchell’s Exile, The Anti-Chopper Chopper

Jason — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:03:06 +0000

Past History with Russell Mitchell

By Mark Masker

Photography by Courtesy Of Exile Cycles, Howard Kelly, Ernie Lopez, Mark Masker

Not all of the famous builders got started early on. Some were in grade school (or younger) when Street Chopper first hit the stands. Russell Mitchell was one of them. He was born in Frampton on Severn, a small farming village in the west of England. They barely had color TV, let alone imported American chopper magazines back then. When he hit his teens, he was a huge skateboarder but by the time he was 16 he’d made the jump to a motor and two wheels and hasn’t looked back since. “I had a buddy of mine who was big into cars who’d occasionally come across American bike magazines like Street Chopper. I remember seeing crazy things like Arlen’s two-engine Sportster,” he reflected.

There were local custom chop rags too, though. Back Street Heroes was one of the more successful European chopper books, and Russell agreed that Street Chopper and other American biker magazines influenced it. “The whole custom bike scene in England at that time (mid-to-late ’70s) was very fledgling,” Russell told us. At the time, people went as flashy as possible, including him, believe it or not. Don’t believe us? Take a look at his first custom job: a coffin-tanked Lambretta scooter. No, you read it right. His first build was actually a chopperized scooter. “I was part of a small faction called The Scooter Scum and we did everything we could to piss off the straight mod scooter contingency by doing everything we could to make our scooters look like choppers.” Saying he did that with the Lambretta would be an exercise in understatement. In its stock form the scooter’s gas tank sat under the seat; Russell threw that out and swapped in a coffin tank atop the chassis spine. He also hand made solid hex steel forks, heated up in a forge, and twisted in a hair pin. The paint? Not exactly the flat black that’s Exile Cycle’s signature move. Try a warrior carrying off a naked chick on the back of a sabertooth tiger. “I named it Exile and it won all the shows but it was the sort of deal where you had to have chrome everything. We had a shop in Birmingham that was our go-to place. Bitchin’ chrome, but it was horribly expensive.”

Via: Streetchopperweb.com

Kustoms of America – Some of the hottest customs under one roof

Jason — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:03:41 +0000

In his teen years, George Barris, legendary Kustom car builder from California, formed a local car club named ” Kustom Car Club”. In the mid ’40s, it became “Kustoms of Los Angeles”. Again in 1949 George changed the name to “Kustoms of America”.He advertised in all the small car books and at one time it was reported to have over 20,000 members.

See gallery photos from Easy Ridder Event 2009

Via: Kustomautos.com

Cutting edge illusions custom chopper “Charlet”

Jason — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:34:00 +0000

Custom Paint Job Information

Tim Force · Seattle, WA

Featured Bike of the Month for August 2008

2007 THUNDER DROP DEAD BIKE OF THE YEAR (SKUNK)

Jason — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:28:54 +0000

ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL,THIS BIKE TOOK 30 YEARS TO BUILD, WITH OVER 6 MONTHS OF PAINT WORK, AND USING EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK, THE SKUNK IS THE PRIDE OF EDDIE TROTTA’S CUSTOM CHOPPERS, START YOU BIDDING HIGH, 300 DIDN’T TAKE IT HOME!

VIA; THUNDERCYCLE.COM