California Specials

CALIFORNIA SPECIALS

Call of the Custom: If you can make it in California, you can make it anywhere

IN THEORY, AT LEAST, IF IT wasn't for California and its influence on motor vehicles, we'd all be riding, and driving, dull, boxy beasts painted in primary colors. California's customizers showed enthusiasts how to make their cars and bikes interesting, and fun, to look at. No less an authority than Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, one of the men who helped start it all, buys into that theory. He says California's rise to Kustom Kingship was the result of amiable year-round weather, the presence of the early cus tom-car magazines and the continuing influence of show business.

These days, a sturdy cadre of motorcycle customizers thrives in Calif ornia for the same reasons as their forerunners. But there's an additional reason. Says

custom artist Denny Berg, "There's always been money out here." ______________

That's not to say that the owners of the octet of motor cycles you'll be introduced to on the following pages are all bucks-up. Rather, most are middle-class enthusiasts who know what they like and know how to get it. For some, getting what they like does indeed involve signing a checkbook. For others, it in volves picking up a spray gun or a set of wrenches and using them to work magic. What's important in the custom curriculum isn't the road one takes to get to the finished product. It's the trip itself. All eight bikes here are the result of such trips, the offspring of cruises down Imagination Lane.

In that respect, then, a Calif ornia custom isn't the result of being in, or from, California. Rather, it's the result of a spir it of adventure, a sense of style and a need to be just a little different.

All eight bikes here result from those characteristics. They could be from anywhere. But they happen to be California Customs.

Jon F. Thompson