Garage Ikebana

Garage Ikebana

LEANINGS

ALL I CAN SAY IS I'M GLAD THERE'S no such thing as a surprise psychiatric inspection. You know, an unannounced raid on your home, a Freudian version of what the fire inspector does when he suddenly drops in on your place of business and writes you up for having oily rags smoldering in uncovered cans. If psychiatrists did spot checks. I'd have been taken away for sure.

It was a Thursday night and there I was. out in the garage all by myself (wife gone visiting), drinking hot sake, positioning a chair in each corner of the garage like points on a compass and moving three vehicles around into various experimental poses and juxtapositions, just like a Japanese ikebana artist arranging fern stalks and lotus blossoms in the most pleasing and Zenful way.

Funny you should mention Lotus. One of the three machines was a car by that name, a 1964 Lotus Super Seven. The Super Seven is a lightweight English roadster that has been called “a motorcycle on four wheels." which, of course, it isn't. A motorcycle has two wheels and that's that. Never mind that we now have touring bikes that outweigh cars.

But I digress. Let’s backtrack a bit. Here’s the deal:

About three weeks ago. I traveled to my home state of Wisconsin to pick up the Lotus and trailer it back to California behind a Chevy van. My old friend and employer Chris Beebe agreed to take a short leave from his foreign-car repair shop in Madison and help with the driving. After we'd loaded our luggage and spare Lotus parts, I said to Chris. “Wow. there's a lot of empty space in the back of this van. What else have you got around here that I need?"

“Well, I have two red 1975 400F Hondas,” Chris said, grinning, “and I’m using only one." I'd been hinting strongly for about 10 years that he might like to sell me his spare 400F, so we wheeled it into the back of the van and hauled the bike to California along with the car.

No sooner had we arrived home and offloaded these treasures than I picked up the local newspaper, perused the motorcycle classifieds as usual and found my breathing suddenly arrested. Under the heading TRIUMPH, which very seldom appears any more, was an ad that read: “'67 TR6C 650cc. stock, classic, immaculate, 13.000 mi.. $1295 obo.”

Now. I don't know about you, but I have been looking for a clean, complete. unbent, unraced, unchopped, unchromed, unruined, stock, lateSixties, high-pipe, single-carb Triumph 650 TR6C (or Trophy, as they called it some years) just about forever. Since 1967. actually. Only a few of these bikes have turned up for sale over the years, and always at the worst possible time, like while I'm standing in line to buv lifeboat tickets on a sinking steamer, or during some similar crisis.

This time wasn't much better. I was almost broke, and there's something wretchedly excessive about stuffing three new/used project vehicles into your garage within any 24hour period, even for me. But still, a Triumph TR6C . . . The Holy Grail itself.

I called the owner, got directions to his house, found the Triumph to be as clean and original as advertised (the engine was a little clattery. but these things can be fixed), gave him a $100 deposit and went to the bank. The following evening I paid for the bike and rode it home on the Pacific Coast Highway, the dual side-mufflers booming through the night, waves crashing on the moonlit empty beaches. Lucas headlight flaring and dimming with the rise and fall of revs. It was wonderful.

When I got home and parked the Triumph in the garage there was no one around to share my elation, but I felt that some sort of celebration w'as in order. Usually. I open a bottle of Guinness Stout on these occasions, but there was nothing in the refrigerator except a few cans of Coors Light, which seemed too weak a brew for such a heady moment. So I heated up a bottle of sake, which has a certain ceremonial aura about it (never mind that Edward Turner was probably spinning in his grave), and returned to the garage.

It was then, unobserved by anyone except our two cats, that I began the experimental placement of the three machines for most harmonious viewing. Garage Ikebana. the new art form. After many false chess moves and shuffles. I finally discovered the magic combination. Many personal interpretations are possible, but in the end I concluded that the Lotus looked best from the front left quarter because of its superb nose and fenderline, the Honda 400F from the right front quarter where the sensuous curves of its 4-into-1 headers can be seen, and the Triumph from the left rear, where its pipes and the waspish narrowness of the tank were most visible. With all these angles and elements properly arranged. I sat back for a long time and studied the three machines.

Suddenly I focused in on the Triumph. its pipes, air cleaner, the lovely tank, the perfect chromed bullet headlamp, the just-right curve of the sloping seatback. the artful finning of the cylinder head, and realized that I was seeing perfection within perfection, cihanna within dhanna. a garageload of stuff that was fun to look at. where the true pleasure of it began with the smallest things. All three machines were designed in different places by different people, yet each designer knew that beauty starts with a thoughtful sympathy for the pieces that make up the whole. “We re talking oneness here." I explained to the cats, “the kind that radiates outward and gravitates inward." They blinked calmly.

I poured another cup of hot sake, held up a toast to the people at Lotus, Honda and Triumph who cared enough for detail to give us their best, and whispered, prayer-like. “Hot Damn." Peter Egan