The Fink Metisse

THE FINK METISSE

Full circle for an old sled

Is it ironic that one of the world's top automotive sheetmetal artists ends up with a bike equipped with fiberglass bodywork?

“No comment!” exclaims Dan Fink, head man at D.F. Metalworks and the owner of this gorgeous street-legalized 1966 Rickman Metisse. “I guess I should have gotten a Cheney instead,” he adds, referring to the classic, all-aluminum British MXer.

Fink is renowned for his hotrod metalwork and was recently featured in the The Learning Channel series called “Rides."

Clearly, Fink is a handy sort, so the glass bodywork on this gorgeous Triumph Metisse was no problem for him. But the bike’s condition when he bought it-from an Internet ad in 1998-most definitely was.

“It wasn’t quite as nice as I thought it was going to be,” he says. Ah, yes, the wonders of the World Wide Web.

“It was bolted together, but like somebody just had a bunch of pieces and slapped them on. Everything was screwed up in the motor, and it was definitely looped once.”

Fink ripped through a full rebuild, all the while reveling in the other bikes in his desert-sled collection ranging from a Norton PI 1A to a Triumph TR6C.

Cracking open the engine revealed a 750cc Routt kit, which Fink bolstered with Venolia pistons and Megacycle cams, and then fitted a correct TR6 head with single Amal carb.

“It’s a good-running bike,” Fink says. “Actually, it’s the fastest bike I own right now.”

The gorgeous yellow paint is from the able gun of Rick Walker from Colorworks (so smooth on application that color-sanding wasn't necessary).

“This was my interpretation of the Rickman Metisse, equipped for the street,” Fink says. “And I can see why these things were the bike to have at the time-it handles great."

The story now takes a turn for the weird when customer and friend Bob Rothenberg tells Fink about a Metisse he used to own. Bob and a buddy drove to California from St. Louis in 1966 to pick up a pair of Rickman kits from Bud Ekins’ shop in Sherman Oaks. They drove out in an El Camino, $1800 the grand total for the two frames, complete with Ceriani forks.

They even met Steve McQueen, hangin' with Bud at the shop as he did. A quick check (a frame dent comparison) revealed Fink's Metisse to be the very same bike!

So, while Fink loves the Rickman, he’s also been reducing the size of his collection, result being, “I’m selling it back to Bob.”

Now if Bob can just find that old El Camino... Mark Hoyer