"I recently bought a 55 Triumph out of Michigan that is pretty interesting. I'm attaching a couple of pics of how it looked a few days after I got it. There are some plusses and some minusses..... the guy I got it from really wanted a Harley several years ago when he bought this bike so he customized it with billet grips, pegs, kicker and highway bars. He put what has to be the worlds worst and cheapest imitation bates seat on it, new 7/8" ugly bars and modern tires and he had it repainted.... fortunately he had the paint done by a professional and apparently he had them duplicate the old paint. He told me that he had it repainted because the old paint was "old lacquer type paint and had checking and crazing", it was probably just perfect! He said he bought it from the estate of a guy who had owned it for what he said was "a long time", that it may have been built in California in the early 60s and it had been kept in the deceased owners house. Anyway, the seller included some of the items he removed (which I promptly reinstalled) like the customized velour double seat (on a modified Bates pan I think), teak wood passenger pegs, knurled chrome kicker and some nuts and bolts. He didn't have any pictures of it as it was when he bought it. I plan to take the fork tubes back to stock length, put on some FC-1 or FC-2 chrome fork covers, Avon front tire, Dunlop rear and I'd really like a set of low to medium rise Flanders or Stellings bars to round it out. Any help in finding parts is greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Mike Carver."
If you can help Mike find any of the parts he's looking for or have something you wish to sell please contact him directly at mcarver11@comcast.net! Thanks Mike for sending over the pictures and story of this cool time machine!
Hey Mike! Maybe you should find out who the pre-pre-owner was. I did the same with my 55 Speed-Twin.
ReplyDeleteI found out who he was and called him. He told me that he imported the bike in the early 70´s chopped it and drove it until 84. Than he sold it and the new owner stored it from 84 until 2010 in his garage. He send me also some nice pics from the day he sold the bike -> http://endlesswrench.blogspot.com/2011/06/e-mail-with-nice-add.html