Doctor's Orders?

I was out of town and also got sick so I haven't been very active with the blog.

A strict medicinal regiment for wellness.

So where does the image of a medicine man/witch doctor with Top Hat originate? The latest Disney animated film "The Princess and the Frog", (set in New Orleans), features such a character as the villain.

The flip side is even cooler.

Mo better now.

This Tank's for You, or....

Older Budweiser

Spotted at he Long Beach swap on Sunday. The detail was excellent. The bottom copy says, "Bogus data by Dave at the Crazy Painters". Some of you may have heard of them.

Dave Willardson H-D Tank Art

Dave Willardson and Charles White III were friends and illustrators who teamed up at one time. They both played a big part in the revival of the airbrush for use in illustrations during the '70's. If you 're old enough, you may have had an album or two featuring their cover art. In 1980 they did 4 illustrations including the cover for the Harley brochure. Dave later went to work for Disney doing all the movie posters for their animated movies. He may still work for Disney.

The above art by Dave Willardson, one of the cooler illustrations from the 1980 H-D Brochure. These were the good old days. It's tough being an illustrator now. Today, almost nobody uses illustrations for music CD's, movie posters, print ads or brochures.

Wild Angels Dragon Bike Update

There's no way that this title would fly today.



Last December I did a post on the original dragon bike and showed these tanks.

Here's a direct link to that Original post

Sunday at the LB swap meet , I talked to the owner of what was left of the original Wild Angels Dragon bike. He informed me that he recently sold it. He wouldn't give any names but, says it's now been rebuilt and watch for it as it will surface soon at a museum. He said it's all been verified and photos were taken with Fonda etc. Several so-called experts confirmed that the tanks were painted by Von Dutch. It was supposed to be in Michael Lichter's Rebel Rousers Icons MC show at Sturgis this year but, he didn't think it will make it.... Well it looks like it might have?

Is this really it? Sneak peek from the Rebel Rousers show.

Inquiring minds want to know. Is this the original, how much of it, or another replica?

There are four problems with the bike as shown. 1. These tanks don't look right to me. They look repainted and like the after market ones which always look too fat at the rear. Perhaps, the original tanks weren't used because of the chips and were kept as a valuable relic of Von Dutch's work. 2. The original bike's license and tail light was on the right side (check the title picture at the top). 3. The ape hangers look too tall. 4. Not real sure about the thickness of that back rest?

I hate when they get stuff like this wrong and there's just no excuse.

One other thing seems to have been confirmed though. Big Scott, the owner of the Wax Museum replica and I were talking about the film bike and he mentioned how he thought it had a Bates sprung seat with a separate one piece pillion and back rest. It's was very hard to tell from the movie and stills. You could see the springs but not much else. It appears he is right.


I forgot to mention. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to the private reception on Aug.4th. If I had been able to make it to Sturgis, I would have been able to check it out first hand. Damn!

Tank a Shot at It

Can you put the right year with each of these tanks?
Answers are shown at bottom of this post

Some of H-D's best. This post started with me seeing this photo on the COC blog.

H-D sort of lost it. They use to do cool combinations of tank paint with emblem/badge design. I'd say the golden period of emblem and two tone paint was the period from '61 to '70 (photo above). For the most part, after '70, they dropped two tone paint and used decals for the additional color.


Wall of fame and possibly a few shames.


The '72-'81 AMF bar emblems were pretty uninspiring.


After about '71, I can't think of any memorable designs until '79-'81, when they re-used the '36-'39 speed ball graphic with the AMF bar. Doesn't help it much by showing it here on one of their worst tanks in a bad color.

It's good to see that in the last 10 years, H-D has once again installed emblems on some selected models. Is it me, or are the new badges just not as inspiring or memorable as the classics?

By coincidence, just a few minutes ago, I saw a late model bike with the '61-'62 badges installed. Which brings up, will anybody be nostalgic for todays badges and install them on new bikes in the future?


Some more recent Badges. Are these the classics of the future?

I always thought for the price paid for a new H-D, you wouldn't mind spending a few extra bucks to get tank emblem/badges. I thinks a good marketing/brand strengthening move. Now, if they only (instead of adhesive tape), screwed on.


How'd you do? The newest design shown is the '71 Superglide (upper left), the only FX in this bunch.

Tanks!...

For Reading MC art.

Dragon Bike, Tank Art of the Week & Celebrity Bikers

Here's a 5fer. The Dragon, Tank Art, and 3 Celebs, well sort of.

These tanks belong to a friend of a friend who claims to have 80-90% of the original Wild Angels Dragon bike. I told him, "you got to put it back together"! The dude has a lot of projects on his plate but, I think the Dragon merits top of the list.

It's thought that the Dragon was painted by Von Dutch. Sure looks like one of his creatures to me. Hope these tanks don't get repainted just because they have some chips.

Movie still poster. It's not the best shot but, you can see it's the same dragon art.

Smoking Dragon. Although it's harder to see, this shot's cooler.

Fondue and the Dernster. Ripped from unknown Blog

Cool Movieland Replica Dragon but, why the dark gray/green dragon tanks and shorter unsprung seat? Photo ripped from Born Loser M/C

The Born Loser M/C blog has this bike for sale right now. There's a ton of Captain Americas and some Billy Bikes but, why no Dragons? I'd choose a Dragon.

Here's what appears to be a post card from the Movieland Wax Museum (Buena Park, CA). That's the same bike for sale now. Check my previous post dated Nov. 12. for a similar photo.

She's wax! That explains the deer in the headlights look.

Tuesday's Tank

Old Donnie Smith tank.
Simple yet effective, I dig paint like this.