Leanings

LEANINGS

Leading the witness

Peter Egan

IF MY FRIENDLY EMPLOYERS SHOULD someday see the light and fire me from journalism, there’s a chance I could take up an alternate career in law. Specifically, courtroom law. Perry Mason stuff—you've seen it— where relentless, clever questioning causes beads of sweat to pop out on the upper lip of the witness, just before he suddenly stands up and shouts a confession to the entire courtroom.

As it stands right now, I don’t know the first thing about law. But I’ve certainly had plenty of practice drawing the truth, or what passes for it, out of reluctant witnesses.

Where, you ask, would a person like me achieve such experience?

Calling about old Triumphs and Nortons, that’s where.

Nearly every day since about 1960, I’ve gone through the classifieds in the daily paper to see what motorcycles are for sale. And, due to a tragic personality defect, I have never failed to study the ads for Triumphs and Nortons with a certain uncalledfor, riveted attention. And sometimes, when one of them sounds truly irresistible (or cheap), I walk right over to the phone, call the owner and ask for details. Sometimes I even buy one.

Back when I lived in a small Midwestern city, I didn’t waste much time on the phone. I'd simply get the address of the seller and run over to his house or garage, look at the thing and draw my own conclusions. But that was then.

Now, I live in a sprawling landscape of single-story stucco buildings known as The Los Angeles Area, where it’s entirely possible to share area codes with a person who lives three hours away by congested freeways named after Spanish saints. So before you waste an entire Saturday morning running off to look at a completely ruined dud of a motorcycle, you want to do some careful investigation over the phone.

Once, for instance, I saw an ad that said, “1968 Triumph Trophy 500, mint condition, must sell, $ 1000.”

Now, my understanding of the word “mint” roughly parallels that of coin collectors and Webster, meaning, “unmarred, as if fresh from a mint.” In other words, the bike should be pretty much as it rolled off the assembly line; virginally perfect but for the passage of a few tanks of gas through its unspoiled engine. And, since $ 1000 is quite a bit for a Trophy 500, I figured this particular bike might be especially mint-like. So I called the owner.

After a few questions about mileage and the condition of the engine, I got right down to the important stuff and asked him what color it was. “Black,” he said.

“Black? Hmmm. I thought the ’68 Trophys were green.”

“They were,” he said. “I had it repainted after the accident.”

“The accident?”

“My carport collapsed on the bike. I guess I had too much lumber piled on the roof. That dented the tank pretty bad, so I had to fill it with Bondo and paint it.”

“Any other damage?”

“Just the speedometer and the frame. The speedometer’s smashed and the kickstand got bent off the frame. You can weld in back on, though. I loaded it into my truck and took it to a shop and they said they could do it for five bucks.”

“Didn’t you get it welded while you were there, as long as you had the bike in the truck and everything?” “No, I just wanted an estimate.” “Does the bike run?”

“It used to, but there’s no gas in the tank. I had to have it welded.”

No further questions. Your Honor. Your witness. Another long drive saved through the miracle of modern communications.

A short time later, I ran across the following ad: “1973 Norton 850 Commando, stock, $400.” Four hundred dollars is pretty cheap for a Commando these days, so I wasn’t expecting miracles, but the word “stock” always leaves a nice ring in my ears where British bikes are concerned, so I hazarded a call.

“Is the bike all original?” I asked. “Everything but the gas tank,” the owner told me. “It’s a yellow fiberglass tank off an early 750.”

“Why did you change the tank?” “Had to. The old one burned.”

“Burned?” I’d heard of a lot of weird Norton malfunctions, but tank fires wasn’t one of them. “How did it happen to catch on fire?” I asked.

“The wiring harness started smoking while my brother was riding and the gas tank leaked, so the bike kind of burst into flame.”

“Ah. What did your brother do?” “Well, he jumped off. Scraped his arm up pretty good.”

“What happened to the bike?” “Uh, it slid into a curb and bent the forks and front wheel. The only other thing that got hurt was the left side cases, and the pipe and muffler. The seat got torn up, too. So all it really needs is that stuff, plus a wiring harness.”

And so ended the Strange Cases of the Mint Trophy and the Stock Norton. But recently, I called about a 1969 Triumph Bonneville in “good original condition.” I learned though nimble interrogation that it was “the single-carb version of the Bonneville” with optional hardtail rear end, plus the added glamour of extended forks and improved, updated wiring out of a late-model 750 that got wrecked.

With that, I hung up the phone and recessed for lunch. With my secretary, Della Street. [o]