Tom and Rose printed four issues in 1969: January, February, one that combined March, April, and May, and a final one in June. "All four were subscription only," Jim said. "If you were an AEE customer you bought a subscription.
A case of butting heads between Rose and Jim saw Jim out in the cold, but he said Tom started hounding him to come back after they produced those first issues. While he returned in January 1970, he actually joined TRM Publications, the corporation Tom and Rose (TRM: Tom Rose McMullen) established to differentiate the parts company from the publishing. "Tom was president, Rose was the secretary/treasurer, Tex was 20-percent partner, and I was the vice president," said Jim Clark.
Among the other changes were frequency and distribution. They didn't sell much (of those early issues), so in December 1969 they decided to go on the newsstand with it," Jim said, their first being March, 1970. "But primarily Rose did it-the legwork," Tex said.
"That must've increased the business tenfold," Dave observed. "There was about a year's lag time in there that was perfect, because if that magazine would've come out in early 1969, we couldn't have kept up." What's more, the new crop of parts Dave developed in the interim made AEE a lot more viable. "I built four custom bikes and there were articles and ads for products that people didn't have." Among them: side-hacks, three-wheel kits, and a host of narrow springer forks and handlebar risers.
In fact, the AEE product line grew to include everything but the engine and transmission. "We started the concept of the kit bike where you could buy a whole kit of parts to turn any bike into a chopper," Dave said.
"They made choppers out of everything," according to Steve Stillwell. For his backstory, Steve was on vacation with his family in 1971 when he waltzed in to the AEE showroom. He said he was there just to check the place out but ended up getting hired almost on the spot-sort of a surprise since he needed to move from Georgia to work there. He worked with McMullen off and on for 23 years and helped oversee numerous titles, including HOT BIKE, which existed as an attempt to court Japanese advertising bucks according to Tex.
Not long after that Dain Gingerelli (Iron Works and numerous book titles) wadded up HOT BIKE's project Honda 350 racer. When Dave Brackett built a chopper around its running gear, it became what's possibly the first Honda rigid chop. "Even back then not everybody could afford a Harley," Steve began. "Even if you got one you were lucky if you could keep it running long enough to get anywhere but if you used one of those Honda motors in one of 'em you could ride it forever."
Tom initially resisted according to Steve. "But we threw a few out there to see what they'd do," he said. It was a home run, "It just sold the shit out of magazines," Steve said. "Once (Tom) saw what the market was, AEE built the shit out of frames and frontends."
"They developed styles like wing tanks and W bars and things that people had never seen before," he continued. "Some of it seemed crazy but we were the first to have a mini drum brake hub for choppers." It was born to satisfy a requirement: "We did a story called How to Brake the Law," Steve said. "It looked like a spool so you'd get stopped for not having a front brake, but then you'd show 'em and away you'd go. Of course you were lucky if it would slow you down at all."
No matter how you gauged it, AEE Choppers was prolific. "They were constantly coming out with new stuff, like something every month," Steve noted. It became apparent that not even the magazine, which was heavily skewed to AEE products to begin with, could keep up.