There are only a few bikes that make it from owner to owner for a few decades and retain any if all of their original parts. In the case of the Rainbow bike, it is a long strange trip starting from a young Mexican-American man's vision and ending up under the ownership of a Vietnamese immigrant living in Southern California some 39 years later. The peculiar thing is how it made it through virtually unscathed and unmodified.
The details we know about the bike are extremely fuzzy, (which explains the lack of a spec sheet) but we do know it was built in 1981 at Denvers Choppers in San Bernardino, Califorina, by Marciano "Junior" Hernandez. Yes, it is Freddie's Brother who bent, welded, bondoed and sanded this creation. Junior didn't do it by himself though; he had plenty of help from a builder's helper who was none other than his 14-year old brother Adrian Hernandez. This bike was the third Junior had built for himself while working with Denvers. Like most of the bikes built at Mullin's shop, Kim Kohrell handled the frame and tank molding, while Donnie Walker did the trippy paintwork and Lil Louie laid on the pinstriping.
Once completed, the Rainbow bike made the rounds showing up in Easyrider's Iron Horse magazine in June of 1982, and Street Chopper's Hot Bike magazine in May of 1986. The bike was also used in Denver's very last catalog for parts reference.
Antoine Ha, a political refugee from South Vietnam, came to the west coast in 1977 by way of Illinois, where a Lutheran church in Belleville, aided him in immigrating to this country in 1975. Antoine was hooked on riding motorbikes since he was a kid and one of the first things he did when moving out to SoCal was to get himself a Harley to ride the coastal highways. After riding his Harley Shovelhead for many years Antoine wanted something different and not stock. He did some research and found out about these beautiful long choppers made by Denver Mullins and he was hooked on them ever since.
Fast forward to 1992 when Antoine spied the Rainbow bike in the Cycle Trader. It was decorating the entryway of some guy's indoor swimming pool in the ritziest part of Newport Beach, California, and he wanted it gone. Antoine called the classified ad and made arrangments to see the bike. The second he saw it he made a deal and Denver's Rainbow was his. Nobody knows when the rich guy came to own the Rainbow bike for how long, but the bike was not in any sort of running condition when it was purchased. Thankfully it was still completely original, right down to the tires. Just the way Antone wanted it.
The day he picked the bike up from the beach house, Antoine took it to vintage Honda engine expert Yoshi, of Westminster Quick Garage Inc. where the early '70s CB 750 motor was brought back to life. Once the bike was back home, Antoine shined up the chrome on the bike and cleaned up the original paint as good as he could while detailing the rest of the bike. Other than a tire swap and some fluids the bike is the same as when the brothers Hernandez built it some four decades ago.
It is fitting that this bike is aptly named the Rainbow due to the fact that people of many colors have come together over the years either building, collecting, or owning this bike. All having their own hand in preserving this bike as an unmolested example of the two-wheeled American dream.