Historic WLA found in the USA

USA showbiz history

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old man emu
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Historic WLA found in the USA

#1

Post by old man emu »

This video has recently appeared on YouTube:


The bike has been identified as having been one used by automotive showman Joie Chitwood in his Joie Chitwood Thrill Show from the mid 1940's.
http://clubs.hemmings.com/nirg-earlyfor ... itwood.htm

I hope that the new owner realises the historic value of this bike to the showbiz history of the USA, and only does what is necessary to preserve it.

It's a crying shame that this young fellow has not been educated in the ways and means of enjoying a 45"
animal12
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Re: Historic WLA found in the USA

#2

Post by animal12 »

It seems that today it's all about doing the youtube blog deal unfortunately .
animal
Mark44
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Re: Historic WLA found in the USA

#3

Post by Mark44 »

old man emu wrote: Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:07 pm It's a crying shame that this young fellow has not been educated in the ways and means of enjoying a 45"
I saw the video, too. He had no idea of how to work a foot clutch/hand shift combination, but surprisingly, he was able to drive it 100 miles (or however far, I don't remember) to get it to his shop.

If you think about it, a very small fraction of 1% of the general populace would be able to start one of these machines, or for that matter, hop on one that was already running, and ride it away.
RooDog
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Re: Historic WLA found in the USA

#4

Post by RooDog »

Sometime in 1977-78 while wrenching at our local H-D Dealership we had a WL in for servicing and when finished it needed to be road tested. As it turned out, I was the only one in the shop able, or willing, to ride that bike with the foot clutch/tank shift. While on that test ride I got stopped by a Tennessee State Highway Patrol Trooper. He was sharp enough to notice that even though the colors of the tag were right, the black & white scheme alternating from year to year, they were two years out of date. And I with an out of state DL, expired tags, and an unusual bike, still managed to talk my way out of a bust, and rode that 45 back to the shop. Ah, those were the daze....

But I think that guy in the flick deserves credit for hopping on that bike, learning to ride it, and making it home @ 35 MPH, on a highway with traffic, for more than a few hours. Yes, he had a chase vehicle, but it was still his butt on that solo seat twisting the throttle.......
....RooDog....
Pascal
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Re: Historic WLA found in the USA

#5

Post by Pascal »

He's got a utube channel offering several "I bought a..." vidz.
The fact that he admits:
a) always having loved the idea of owning an old Harley
b) did his best to chase his dreams and
c) managed to ride this old horse with some instructions from a friend gives him enough credit I guess.

There's a Harley shop nearby, every time they service an old horse with footclutch they ring and ask me to ride and test it..
People are fascinated but scared big times with the many operating procedures when starting and riding these scoots..
old man emu
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Re: Historic WLA found in the USA

#6

Post by old man emu »

I always chuckle at these blokes on their big, new noisy Harleys who look at my bike and ask how can you ride and use your hand to change gear. I simply ask them if they can drive a stick shift in a car. Then I tell them that I don't need a light on my panel to tell me what gear I am in.

It erks me when one bloke will say, with a know-it-all tone, to his mate, "Look. It's got a suicide shift". I might be wrong, but to me a suicide shift (and I'm not talking about a suicide clutch) is a gear lever setup on a chopper or rat bike based on a recent H-D model where the foot-operated gear selector has been replaced with a stick, usually located behind the rider's leg. I like the way the smartarse implodes when I tell him that it's not a suicide shift, but the way very many brands of bike set up their gear selectors until the middle of the 20th Century.
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