Flying Pan

Flying Pan

Talk about your rebel yell!

JOHN BURNS

CONVENTIONAL HINDSIGHT SEEMS TO HAVE CONCLUDED that the South lost the Civil War due to its lack of technology and production capability. If that's the case, it makes sense that Gen. William T. Sherman, on his way to sack Atlanta, ran into some seriously stiff resistance around Kennesaw Mountain, just northeast of Marietta, Georgia.

I-low titting that Just ott the main square in Manetta today, you'll stumble across Young Choppers and Hot Rods, a fully outfitted 11,000-square-foot shop with enough lathes and English wheels and production capability to fashion any sort of part for any sort of vehicle-that is, if you know how to use them. Thirty-eightyear-old Hank Young apparently does. In Young's motorcycles, the past isn't history, it isn't even past. You're soaking in it now. On his attention-grabbing "Flying Pan," the front downtube started life as a Bell dropped axle from an old hot rod Ford. The rear fender's a spare-tire cover from a `36 Ford, widened a few inches. The veloci ty stack used to be the horn cover on the same car. The head light bucket belongs on a Model T, the taillight's out of a Western Auto catalog from the `30s.

If Young seems new on the celebrity chopper circuit, that’s because he’s only really been building motorcycles as a profession for a few years. For two decades before that, though, Hank was in the business of building custom cars while playing with bikes on the side. Somewhere along the way, the balance tilted in the two-wheeled direction, partially because a bike like Flying Pan can be built in a matter of months instead of years, and hey, life is short. Flying Pan put Hank on the map, but a lot of motorcycles came before it.

Young attended Georgia Tech, but his father was a long-time builder of hot-rod cars and motorcycles before him, and playing with tools and vehicles was only natural. Though he speaks Ducati and Suzuki and keeps track of current trends and technology in the moto-business, you can look at Flying Pan and guess where his heart lies. Board-track racers of the Twenties, Deuce Fords, steam locomotives, Schwinn bicycles, etc. Schwinn bicycles?

“When I started on Flying Pan, I knew sort of what I wanted but not exactly,” Young says. “Every morning I’d walk past an old Schwinn out in the garage, and that curved top tube must have somehow just got stuck in my brain.”

In fact, about the only place Hank doesn’t look for ideas is in biker maga zines: "I don't want to get stuck in a rut building bikes that look like everybody else's." Nor does he even look like your typical cus tom-bike builder, having resisted the urge to festoon himself with body art or distinctive hirsutisms. "I guess I’m rebelling against the rebellers,” says Hank. (We’ll have to see how he responds to the Hollywood pressure after the Discovery Channel makes him famous.)

Apart from its unique frame, the rear wheel is the other main focal point on the Flying Pan, and another good place to bring a little hot-rod knowledge to bear. An old Ford wire wheel widened a couple inches is the perfect domicile for a modern 240 x 18-inch Metzeier, and a Buick drum brake with Ford internals provides plenty of stopping power for a lightweight motorcycle, enough to dispense with brakes on the Indian-inspired front end (a reproduction item you can buy from Young), though he’s flexible enough to have used Honda CR250 brakes on other motorcycles.

That’s not gold paint on the fuel tank: it is the fuel tank in hand-formed, hand-polished copper. Research in how to properly weld copper uncovered no useful information, so Young went ahead and TIG-welded sections of copper together, with a result that speaks for itself and seems to be holding up fine. The oil tank is steel with a copper sheath.

So, this is a showbike right? With those fire-breathing exhausts, surely you’re not going anywhere on it?

Strained silence (probably shouldn’t’ve called him Shirley...). Well, it is pretty loud, says Hank, but functionality is Job One at Young Choppers-besides, even Flying Pan needs to make a certain amount of racket to gain respect at Daytona and Sturgis. The bike’s Panheadlookalike 88-inch S&S motor, in spite of its exhaust note and period L-series dual-float-bowl carburetion, is in a mild state of tune-which is to say “only” 100 horses or so-and that’s a decision on the part of Young to build motorcycles to ride, not to worry about. That’s another piece of wisdom you come upon after years of living with custom conveyances, and multiplied by 10 when your living involves selling them to other people.

Flying Pan’s limiting factor, according to Hank, is that the copper fuel tank holds only 2 gallons, so you kind of need to plan your round trips to, say, Stone Maintain, 40 miles distant. Apart from that, the Flying Pan is up for most anything. Young says he’s flogged the

bike down gravel roads and all over the place. At this point, the sportbike guy in you sort of has to sit up and take notice. How much worse than an old Moto Guzzi could that be, especially if you like Moto Guzzis, which we do? No wasted time making suspension adjustments...

It’s cliché to say, but the deeper you look at Flying Pan, the more you see. The wing nuts that hold the rear fender to its stays are safety-wired, and there’s an old-fashioned hand fuel pump mounted to the side of the tank to add to the period competition look. You can see more of Hank’s handiwork at www.youngchoppers.com or by showing up at big events like Daytona or Sturgis. In the off-season, though, you’ll find Mr. Young in the shop off the square in Marietta, within sight of Kennesaw Mountain, turning raw metal, imagination and history into some of the most distinctive motorcycles in the world. The shop, says Hank, is where his heart is. □