How cliche is it to write a feature about a guy that "gets it"? Very, but out of all those people, who really gets it? I guess it really depends on what "it" is. Well, we're not talking about garbage laden so-called "choppers" with more hot rod car parts bolted on all over the place than original parts taken off, or contemporary cable TV show monstrosities or shittier-than-thou rat bikes with more header wrap that you can shake a stick at-we're talking about choppers, honest choppers. Choppers from a time when there weren't too many variations of the term, let's say 1968. Before most chopper-based mags, before the infamous Easy Rider movie came out, back when West Coast-style meant less is more on two wheels. Back when the general public actually had a sense of style, let alone a man and his machine.
John Edwards gets it, but not the "it" that all those other people get. He may not be long in the tooth, but he has the nitty-gritty details of the past engrained in his head. How things came about, how custom things-both automotive and motorcycle related-came to pass-to the 'nth degree. John is also a painter. After years in production and dealership shops, he paints for himself and a select few, but with all the period details of the '60s and '70s he can find without actually having painted back then himself.
John's '52 panhead started as a turn-and-burn project that he bought from a couple of friends. It was a fairly complete bike with 5 gallon tanks, a king and queen seat, etc. He and fellow Sinner Jose, tore the bike completely apart its first day at its new home. After the dust settled, the only things he kept were the straight leg frame, '52 pan motor, and early four-speed trans. John rebuilt the bike into a rough, blurry, version of what you see here, but without all the refinements and rare parts. Through a wheeling and dealing session not too long after with another good friend, Mike Davis, John traded the already unique '52 for a '57 pan project.
Things happen for a reason and the opportunity came for John to buy the '52 back and he took it. From here on out he made a concerted effort to make his vision of a circa '67-68 show bike come to pass after eye-balling it for a few months. A chromed ribbed British fender went out back; the wheels were assembled using vintage Borrani shouldered rims in the most pleasing widths for the period along with the obligatory bias-ply Avon rubber. The not so common narrow front rim was a gift from Johnny Chop before he passed. The front drum brake was also taken off the VL springer which was polished to infinitum before being dipped in the shiny stuff that now covers many of the parts on the finished version. Around this time John found the old Imperial finned aluminum outer primary cover, which was soon to go well with all the vintage Randy Smith Custom Cycle Engineering aluminum goodies such as the rocker covers, bird deflector, and pegs. As you see, all the aluminum pieces were polished to perfection. John also wanted to make the foot controls match which doesn't usually happen when using vintage parts, so he modified the Knucklehead foot clutch assembly to match the custom brake and peg setup on the right side.