Oh come on now! After one look at the cover of the world's first chopper magazine with Tom McMullen's "Easy Rider Too" bike on it, does anything else really need to be said? Probably not, but this issue has so much cool stuff inside, here we go anyway.
Columbia Pictures realized how hot the reception to its 1969 release of the movie Easy Rider was and decided to contract someone to build them a replacement for those stolen or destroyed bikes during the making of the film. The bike would be used for promotion of the movie, and McMullen's AEE Choppers in Anaheim, California, was given the job. Tom consulted with people involved in the making of the film to come up with a perfect knock-off of the world's most famous red, white, and blue panhead chopper.
Another one of Tom's creations covered in this issue is his forever famous "Big Twin" trike. This was the most radical departure of trike design ever undertaken by anyone. It had two Sportster engines with four huge race car slicks at the rear for traction, and a pair of wheelie bars to keep it from flipping over. Transferring power to the excessive amount of rear tire patch was done with a converted Ford C4 automatic transmission mounted transversely in the frame. A chaindrive sprocket attached to the C4 passes power along to a fully chromed Harley ServiCar rearend. Every one of us at STREET CHOPPER remembers seeing pictures of this trike as kids, and a couple of us were lucky enough to view it in person.
Many of us now regret altering a perfectly good, classic frame, but the second installment of "Build a Super Sport" showed how to cut off the rear section of an old XL frame to weld on a rigid sub-section. How we considered converting a swing arm to a rigid and calling it a "Super Sport" doesn't make much sense nowadays, but the early '70s were a slightly foggy time for some folks. Besides, it was all about fun, and the frames weren't really classics back then, so major alteration was a little more acceptable.
In stark contrast to today, this issue had very few ads for pre-made parts; most everything you see inside was fabricated by hands of the talented craftsmen who started it all. We just happen to be proud of the fact that our founder, Tom McMullen, was a cornerstone of it all and instrumental in making everything we still enjoy more than 30 years later. We're even more proud of the fact that STREET CHOPPER is once again the magazine of choice for chopper fans around the world. Everybody loves an original.