CRAZY GEORGE DISTEEL

George Disteel, towards the end of his life

 It was a rumor which floated around the San Francisco 'old bike' community for years - the crazy old guy whose son had been killed on a Vincent Black Shadow, went crazy, and spent the rest of his life hunting down Vincents, which he squirreled away in chicken shacks on his property.

Vincent Black Prince

The rumor was, as far as anyone can tell, based on the real life of George Disteel.  George was an avid motorcyclist, a fan of Vincent motorcycles, owning a Black Shadow named 'Sad Sack', and apparently a rider of some skill.  Born in 1904, he discovered Marin county in the 1940s after serving in the military - a motorcyclist paradise, full of empty, twising roads and year-round mild weather.  No one today knows what machines George owned before the Vincent, but he seems to have purchased his Shadow brand new, and created an impression in the local motorcycling community, not only for his riding ability and choice of the World's Fastest Production Motorcycle (as it said in the Vincent advertising), but of his increasingly erratic behavior, and appearance.

 ca.1947 Velocette KSS mk2 'bob-job'

A man of great personal discipline, George walked or bicycled many miles per day, and kept up a rigorous exercise routine.  He was also fond of wearing little clothing, quite possible in sunny Marin, and his ever growing beard usually served as his only upper-torso modesty.   Sometime in the late 1950s, his behavior became erratic, and he confided in an apprentice (Disteel was a master carpenter) the story of his 'son', who was tragically killed riding a Vincent at 20 years old.  George was never married, although he did have a few liasons earlier in his life, but no-one seems able to corroborate whether he had a son, or a paternal relationship with a young man.  In a sense, it doesn't matter, as this story became his justification for bizarre actions, such as stuffing every nook and cranny of his home and jobsites with paper and old cloth, and searching northern California for fast motorcycles, especially Vincents, to buy and hide away, preventing the death of another unsuspecting youth.

 Royal Enfield Interceptor700cc

 George eventually amassed something like 18 Vincents, two KSS Velocettes, a Norton International, two Moto Guzzi Falcones, an R51 BMW, Sunbeams, DKWs, Royal Enfields, plus a lot of rifles, clocks, oddments, antiques, etc, all of which he paid for by canny investments in real estate, making him quite rich.  He didn't appear rich at all though, with his near-nakedness, lack of bathing, and odd behavior.  Although he owned 23 properties in Marin county, he lived for a while in a '52 Hudson car filled with trash.  Eviction from the car meant moving to a Tenderloin residence hotel in San Francisco, after taking a sledgehammer to the car and having it towed.   Towards the end of his days, with cataracts making reading difficult and driving impossible, he wore a pirate's eyepatch made of gaffer's tape, switching from side to side in order to see better.

He collapsed on the street in SF in 1978, aged 74, and a keen-eyed coroner realized he was no indigent, which began a chain of discovery of the man's multiple homes, lands, sheds, hidden caches of motorcycles, storage units, etc.  As no heirs could be found, the motorcycles were sold at Butterfields auction house in San Francisco, where the Vincents fetched from $800 - $1500... Some of these motorcycles were brand new or nearly so, and many merely needed a good clean after their years packed in rags within sealed toolsheds.  A few of my friends own these bikes, so I'm fairly sure the story is true...at least, the Vincent-in-a-chicken-coop part.

 Moto Guzzi Falcone

'CRAZY' GEORGE DISTEEL

George Disteel, towards the end of his life

 It was a rumor which floated around the San Francisco 'old bike' community for years - the crazy old guy whose son had been killed on a Vincent Black Shadow, went crazy, and spent the rest of his life hunting down Vincents, which he squirreled away in chicken shacks on his property.

Vincent Black Prince

The rumor was, as far as anyone can tell, based on the real life of George Disteel.  George was an avid motorcyclist, a fan of Vincent motorcycles, owning a Black Shadow named 'Sad Sack', and apparently a rider of some skill.  Born in 1904, he discovered Marin county in the 1940s after serving in the military - a motorcyclist paradise, full of empty, twising roads and year-round mild weather.  No one today knows what machines George owned before the Vincent, but he seems to have purchased his Shadow brand new, and created an impression in the local motorcycling community, not only for his riding ability and choice of the World's Fastest Production Motorcycle (as it said in the Vincent advertising), but of his increasingly erratic behavior, and appearance.

 ca.1947 Velocette KSS mk2 'bob-job'

A man of great personal discipline, George walked or bicycled many miles per day, and kept up a rigorous exercise routine.  He was also fond of wearing little clothing, quite possible in sunny Marin, and his ever growing beard usually served as his only upper-torso modesty.   Sometime in the late 1950s, his behavior became erratic, and he confided in an apprentice (Disteel was a master carpenter) the story of his 'son', who was tragically killed riding a Vincent at 20 years old.  George was never married, although he did have a few liasons earlier in his life, but no-one seems able to corroborate whether he had a son, or a paternal relationship with a young man.  In a sense, it doesn't matter, as this story became his justification for bizarre actions, such as stuffing every nook and cranny of his home and jobsites with paper and old cloth, and searching northern California for fast motorcycles, especially Vincents, to buy and hide away, preventing the death of another unsuspecting youth.

 Royal Enfield Interceptor700cc

 George eventually amassed something like 18 Vincents, two KSS Velocettes, a Norton International, two Moto Guzzi Falcones, an R51 BMW, Sunbeams, DKWs, Royal Enfields, plus a lot of rifles, clocks, oddments, antiques, etc, all of which he paid for by canny investments in real estate, making him quite rich.  He didn't appear rich at all though, with his near-nakedness, lack of bathing, and odd behavior.  Although he owned 23 properties in Marin county, he lived for a while in a '52 Hudson car filled with trash.  Eviction from the car meant moving to a Tenderloin residence hotel in San Francisco, after taking a sledgehammer to the car and having it towed.   Towards the end of his days, with cataracts making reading difficult and driving impossible, he wore a pirate's eyepatch made of gaffer's tape, switching from side to side in order to see better.

He collapsed on the street in SF in 1978, aged 74, and a keen-eyed coroner realized he was no indigent, which began a chain of discovery of the man's multiple homes, lands, sheds, hidden caches of motorcycles, storage units, etc.  As no heirs could be found, the motorcycles were sold at Butterfields auction house in San Francisco, where the Vincents fetched from $800 - $1500... Some of these motorcycles were brand new or nearly so, and many merely needed a good clean after their years packed in rags within sealed toolsheds.  A few of my friends own these bikes, so I'm fairly sure the story is true...at least, the Vincent-in-a-chicken-coop part.

 Moto Guzzi Falcone

GEORGE ORWELL'S MOTORCYCLES

In the waning days of the Vincent Motorcycle Co, 1955 to be exact, the producers of the film adaptation of George Orwell's classic '1984' utilized the services of the Vincent Owner's Club to provide a chilling mobile Thought Police force, filming their nearly-new Vincents in a bombed-out area behind Guildhall, London. The photograph above is from the September 1, 1955 issue of The Motor Cycle, which has a small feature on the motorcycles in the film.

The Thought Police, keepers of order and maintaining correct speech, thought, and behavior (the ultimate P.C. brigade - and did you know the term 'politically correct' comes from the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960's?), rode the most sinister and imposing motorcycle available; Vincent Black Knightss (or Princes - can't tell the difference in the film, as the bike's identity has been removed; common before the days of 'pay for play' product placement in the movies). Vincent's new-for -'54 models had full fiberglass enclosure and fairings, and in their all-black guise from the factory certainly gave an impression of menace, which may look ungainly now, but in the day, was certainly futuristic and slightly unnerving (see below).

George Orwell was born Eric Blair, son of an English civil servant in Bengal, India. He was sent home to England for school; his prowess shone and he was given scholarships, landing him at historic Eton, where he evidenced a disrespect for the authority of his teachers (later writing the essay 'Such, Such Were the Joys' about his early school days). With his 'poor attitude', no scholarship for university study was forthcoming, and he joined the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma (India and Burma being colonies of England at that time). (Orwell can be seen below, the tall one!)

He grew to hate Imperialism, writing several essays at the time deeply critical of the hyporcrisy and brutality he witnessed (his first novel was 'Burmese Days'). He took the pen name George Orwell at this time, after the patron Saint George of England, and the Orwell River in Suffolk county.

While in Burma, he learned to ride an American military motorcycle (don't know what make!), and is reputed to have hunted tigers on it, using his Luger Parabellum pistol! According to 'The Unkown Orwell' (Stansky & Abrahams, 1972), the bike had 'four cylinders fore and aft'; this would have been 1922, so the selection of possible machines is limited - perhaps an ex-military Henderson such as the 1918 model above? Back in England, according to the same book, Orwell caught pneumonia while delivering the manuscript for 'Burmese Days' to his publisher, in the freezing rain on his motorcycle, December 1933.

The life of a writer was then as now a difficult financial path, and Orwell experienced waves of impoverishment, summarizing his experience in the 1930's (during the worst of the Depression) in his book 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. During this period of impecunity, he was occasionally homeless, contracted tuberculosis, refused to wear a warm overcoat, and was dogged by ill health for the rest of his short life.

In 1937, he volunteered to fight on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War (above, Orwell is the tall one, his wife sitting below), against Franco's Fascists; Orwell joined the POUM (Worker's Party of Marxist Unification), a far-left and anti-Stalinist fighting group, which allied with the Anarchists to fight both the Fascists AND the Communist party (supported by Stalin and his secret police, regularly attacked the Anarchists and POUM). In June 1937 he and his wife fled Spain, narrowly beating the Soviet secret service which sought to kill him for being a Trotskyite. He shortly published the book 'Homage to Catalonia' about his experiences in Spain.

When WW2 began, he worked for the BBC Eastern Service (above, with fellow writer T.S.Eliot), an easy fit due to his early years spent in India and Burma, writing copy to convince Indians and East Asians to support the British war effort. He spoke of feeling like 'an orange that's been trodden on by a very dirty boot' for his distaste at working as a propagandist. After quitting in 1943 to write with the left-wing Tribune, he published 'Animal Farm', an allegory of Stalinist repression, in 1944, which was his first literary success.

From 1946-48 he lived in the village of Barnhill (below), on the island of Jura in Scotland while writing the novel '1984', an allegory of totalitarianism, and the use of language to shape thought and behavior. While living on Jura, he apparently rode an old Rudge ('four valves, four speeds' - an advanced bike... in 1926), which was noted as being unreliable in the extreme! A search for the motorcycle on Jura in later years reveals contradictory stories; one claims the Rudge was scrapped after being sold to a boat captain. Another tale by writer and cartoonist Jock Macneish claims the Rudge was left in a hedge when Orwell left, and it sits there on Jura, rotting, to this day! (It's a great story, click here).

'1984', of course, became Orwell's best-selling and most famous book, with much of his language, peculiar to his vision of English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the novel's 'Newspeak'), becoming part of everyday use even today - 'big brother', 'thought police', 'war is peace', etc, and the implied (and chilling) analysis that in modern war, "Victory is not possible; the war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous...".

Orwell died of complications of tuberculosis at the age of 46, in 1950. He didn't live long enough to see the film adaptation of '1984', nor the début of the Vincent Black Knight.

(The above images are all 'copyleft', for non-commercial reproduction)

GEORGE ORWELL'S MOTORCYCLES

In the waning days of the Vincent Motorcycle Co, 1955 to be exact, the producers of the film adaptation of George Orwell's classic '1984' utilized the services of the Vincent Owner's Club to provide a chilling mobile Thought Police force, filming their nearly-new Vincents in a bombed-out area behind Guildhall, London. The photograph above is from the September 1, 1955 issue of The Motor Cycle, which has a small feature on the motorcycles in the film.

The Thought Police, keepers of order and maintaining correct speech, thought, and behavior (the ultimate P.C. brigade - and did you know the term 'politically correct' comes from the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960's?), rode the most sinister and imposing motorcycle available; Vincent Black Knightss (or Princes - can't tell the difference in the film, as the bike's identity has been removed; common before the days of 'pay for play' product placement in the movies). Vincent's new-for -'54 models had full fiberglass enclosure and fairings, and in their all-black guise from the factory certainly gave an impression of menace, which may look ungainly now, but in the day, was certainly futuristic and slightly unnerving (see below).

George Orwell was born Eric Blair, son of an English civil servant in Bengal, India. He was sent home to England for school; his prowess shone and he was given scholarships, landing him at historic Eton, where he evidenced a disrespect for the authority of his teachers (later writing the essay 'Such, Such Were the Joys' about his early school days). With his 'poor attitude', no scholarship for university study was forthcoming, and he joined the Indian Imperial Police, in Burma (India and Burma being colonies of England at that time). (Orwell can be seen below, the tall one!)

He grew to hate Imperialism, writing several essays at the time deeply critical of the hyporcrisy and brutality he witnessed (his first novel was 'Burmese Days'). He took the pen name George Orwell at this time, after the patron Saint George of England, and the Orwell River in Suffolk county.

While in Burma, he learned to ride an American military motorcycle (don't know what make!), and is reputed to have hunted tigers on it, using his Luger Parabellum pistol! According to 'The Unkown Orwell' (Stansky & Abrahams, 1972), the bike had 'four cylinders fore and aft'; this would have been 1922, so the selection of possible machines is limited - perhaps an ex-military Henderson such as the 1918 model above? Back in England, according to the same book, Orwell caught pneumonia while delivering the manuscript for 'Burmese Days' to his publisher, in the freezing rain on his motorcycle, December 1933.

The life of a writer was then as now a difficult financial path, and Orwell experienced waves of impoverishment, summarizing his experience in the 1930's (during the worst of the Depression) in his book 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. During this period of impecunity, he was occasionally homeless, contracted tuberculosis, refused to wear a warm overcoat, and was dogged by ill health for the rest of his short life.

In 1937, he volunteered to fight on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War (above, Orwell is the tall one, his wife sitting below), against Franco's Fascists; Orwell joined the POUM (Worker's Party of Marxist Unification), a far-left and anti-Stalinist fighting group, which allied with the Anarchists to fight both the Fascists AND the Communist party (supported by Stalin and his secret police, regularly attacked the Anarchists and POUM). In June 1937 he and his wife fled Spain, narrowly beating the Soviet secret service which sought to kill him for being a Trotskyite. He shortly published the book 'Homage to Catalonia' about his experiences in Spain.

When WW2 began, he worked for the BBC Eastern Service (above, with fellow writer T.S.Eliot), an easy fit due to his early years spent in India and Burma, writing copy to convince Indians and East Asians to support the British war effort. He spoke of feeling like 'an orange that's been trodden on by a very dirty boot' for his distaste at working as a propagandist. After quitting in 1943 to write with the left-wing Tribune, he published 'Animal Farm', an allegory of Stalinist repression, in 1944, which was his first literary success.

From 1946-48 he lived in the village of Barnhill (below), on the island of Jura in Scotland while writing the novel '1984', an allegory of totalitarianism, and the use of language to shape thought and behavior. While living on Jura, he apparently rode an old Rudge ('four valves, four speeds' - an advanced bike... in 1926), which was noted as being unreliable in the extreme! A search for the motorcycle on Jura in later years reveals contradictory stories; one claims the Rudge was scrapped after being sold to a boat captain. Another tale by writer and cartoonist Jock Macneish claims the Rudge was left in a hedge when Orwell left, and it sits there on Jura, rotting, to this day! (It's a great story, click here).

'1984', of course, became Orwell's best-selling and most famous book, with much of his language, peculiar to his vision of English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the novel's 'Newspeak'), becoming part of everyday use even today - 'big brother', 'thought police', 'war is peace', etc, and the implied (and chilling) analysis that in modern war, "Victory is not possible; the war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous...".

Orwell died of complications of tuberculosis at the age of 46, in 1950. He didn't live long enough to see the film adaptation of '1984', nor the début of the Vincent Black Knight.

(The above images are all 'copyleft', for non-commercial reproduction)

JAY LENO'S VINCENT SPECIAL

Special to the Vintagent by John Joss

Jay Leno is exactly as he appears: a decent, straight-ahead, clever man with a lifelong passion for motorcycles. He invited me to his home in 90210 to interview and photograph him. Because I had to take a large camera case (Nikons, lenses, etc.) I had to drive in my antique Honda Civic. When I arrived he was waiting at his front gates.

"Jay," I asked, "is it okay to drive a Honda Civic in Beverly Hills? Will I be arrested?" He looked around furtively: "If we get it inside quickly they may not see you and you'll get away with it."

We entered the immense mansion and he led me into the living room, with 15'-high ceiling dominated by a huge TV screen. "Mavis is out," he said. "We can play a little." He put on a video of a Shuttle launch and cranked up the volume until the whole damn place shook. It was . . . terrific.

Then we went outside to see his latest (then) toy, his newly finished Vincent Special. I took a shot of it, several actually, and it's a gem. A Rapide engine tucked into a custom frame with Featherbed-like rear end, a Ceriani front fork with single big disk, and perfect paint. He kick-started it and it took first kick (he had not warmed it up), and grinned like a madman. The Vincent specialist in L.A. whose name I do not remember (old age, but someone who

reads this will know) created the machine and it is deeply desirable.

Leno the man is the guy you'd like to ride with, hang out with and talk to about bikes. His enthusiasm is 100% genuine and every time I see him he remembers me--time, place, bike, everything--even though he lives a life of intense and complex demands. Maybe we can have him cloned so that he can spend time with bikers AND enjoy his entertainment life. If anyone who reads this would like me to scan and post some of the other pix, about 20 in all, I will be happy to do so. (email John here)

JAY LENO'S VINCENT SPECIAL

Special to the Vintagent by John Joss

Jay Leno is exactly as he appears: a decent, straight-ahead, clever man with a lifelong passion for motorcycles. He invited me to his home in 90210 to interview and photograph him. Because I had to take a large camera case (Nikons, lenses, etc.) I had to drive in my antique Honda Civic. When I arrived he was waiting at his front gates.

"Jay," I asked, "is it okay to drive a Honda Civic in Beverly Hills? Will I be arrested?" He looked around furtively: "If we get it inside quickly they may not see you and you'll get away with it."

We entered the immense mansion and he led me into the living room, with 15'-high ceiling dominated by a huge TV screen. "Mavis is out," he said. "We can play a little." He put on a video of a Shuttle launch and cranked up the volume until the whole damn place shook. It was . . . terrific.

Then we went outside to see his latest (then) toy, his newly finished Vincent Special. I took a shot of it, several actually, and it's a gem. A Rapide engine tucked into a custom frame with Featherbed-like rear end, a Ceriani front fork with single big disk, and perfect paint. He kick-started it and it took first kick (he had not warmed it up), and grinned like a madman. The Vincent specialist in L.A. whose name I do not remember (old age, but someone who

reads this will know) created the machine and it is deeply desirable.

Leno the man is the guy you'd like to ride with, hang out with and talk to about bikes. His enthusiasm is 100% genuine and every time I see him he remembers me--time, place, bike, everything--even though he lives a life of intense and complex demands. Maybe we can have him cloned so that he can spend time with bikers AND enjoy his entertainment life. If anyone who reads this would like me to scan and post some of the other pix, about 20 in all, I will be happy to do so. (email John here)

THE BLUE BIKE

Marty Dickerson's 1948 Vincent Rapide Series B racer is coming up for auction at the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA by Bonhams this weekend, and I'm very curious to see how it does, given that so many historic Vincents have been 'released' recently. This machine has a unique history, which should attract plenty of interest come Saturday.

Dickerson traded a Triumph Tiger 100 for this machine in 1948 (plus some cash no doubt), having been entranced by the publicity already generated in road, racing, and speed trials of this model. Shortly after purchasing the machine, Marty (already a familiar face at the Southern California Speed Trials) made several runs at Rosamund Dry Lake at over 120mph - clearly he had purchased 'a good one'. The Rapide was in full road trim, to boot.

During the summer of 1949, Vincent's West Coast distributor, Mickey Martin, hired Dickerson to make a 'tour' of potential Vincent dealerships in the Southwest. I'll quote the catalog here, as the writer (Somer Hooker?) has produced some fine prose:

"... his lengthy itinerary of both planned and unscheduled visits, calling by the stores of bemused dealers, unwittingly laid the foundations of Mary Dickersn's future reputation. Here's how. Inevitably, it seemed, when riding to a halt ouside the shop of a town's cycle trader, he'd almost certainly be shortly challenged to a drag contest by one or other of the community's 2- or 4- wheel Hot-Shoes. Almost invariably, of course, that town's mechanical mafia had failed to recognize or fully appreciate the machine on which Marty had ridden-into-town! In those days of course unofficial drag racing was a widely accepted pastime, often overlooked by tolerant authorities; suburban street drags were part of small city culture amongst the Under-25s. Throughout the hot, dusty southwest Marty became known as The Stranger. More importantly, while participating in these spontaneous sprints - irrespective of how tired or unprepared he and the Vincent may have been - he was never once outrun!"

Dickerson became a Vincent dealer himself, and set about modifying his Rapide for racing (see lower photo), and high speed runs on the Salt; changing the crankcases, porting the cylinder heads for larger carbs and 2" exhaust pipes, removing the road equipment, trading the original Brampton girders for Girdraulics, etc. In 1952, his efforts were rewarded with the AMA Class 'C' record (meaning - 'pump' fuel, comp. ratio limited to 8:1, upright sitting position) at 141.72mph, and the following year managed 147.56mph, a record which remained unbroken for the next 20 years.

Dickerson also raced and speed-trapped a 500cc Grey Flash, rode Joe Simpson's Black Lightning to 163.31mph at Bonneville in '63, and is a legend among Vincent aficionados. The 'Blue Bike' is claimed to be in 'as last raced' condition, with all timekeeper's seals etc intact.

Estimated sale price is $380,000 - 500,000. I predict it will fetch over $400k, but not $500k. I'll hazard a guess at $420,000, purely on past prices, but a few things have changed recently (see below), and the big question remains; who will be bidding? Probably not someone in the room... the supercharged Lightning which sold last week had only one serious bidder, and it was evident to onlookers at Stafford that the reserve was lowered during the course of the auction via phone call, as it was clear the Vinnie wasn't going to sell with the original reserve. I've been queried by one deep-pockets motorcycle collector - how many really big bidders are out there right now for top-notch motorcycles?

One x factor which has arisen this week is the value of the dollar - it's trading today at £1 = $1.60, and 1euro = $1.28. The dollar hasn't been this strong for a several years...which has to be a factor at the upper level of the market. It was only a few months ago that it took fully $2 to buy a pound - that's a big change.

Another x factor... has to be the 'holy grail' issue. There is ONE Vincent which is coveted above all others, one of the top 3 most famous motorcycles of all time (okay - the TE Lawrence Brough SS100, and the 'Captain America' Harley chopper), and that's the Rollie Free 'bathing suit' Vincent. I have heard rumors that this machine is available, and/or will be coming up for sale. If I'm hearing it, then the likely buyers are hearing it too, and may be hedging their bets this weekend.

Interestingly (as mentioned on the supercharged Vincent update), sales of collectible 'second-tier' machines in the 'under $100,000 range' continue to be strong, indicating general good health of the Vintage Motorcycle market.

I'll be visiting the bike in LA before it goes to a new home, and will post further photos.