Beautiful Loser
BEAUTIFUL LOSER
American FLYERS
Copper ’n’ cream comeback
WHAT’S WRONG WITH Cole Foster? The man has no cable-television series (doesn’t every custom-bike builder?) nor any beer/tool/auto-parts/ computer-game merchandising tie-ins. Shoot, his website (www.salinasboys.com) contains only pictures of the cars and bikes he’s built plus a ridiculously small smattering of (albeit very cool) T-shirts—but strangely no edible panties emblazoned with the shop logo, no teddy bears wearing leather vests.
When previous Discovery Channel “Biker Build-Off participants nominated him for the 2005 season, Foster had to admit he had never even seen the show.
Don’t know about you, but I like the guy already...
Foster first Flipped onto our radar screens three years ago when he unveiled his “Salinas Boyz Bobber,” a candy-apple cross between a Harley Big Twin and a Schwinn Stingray. Crisp and tiny, it was the antithesis of the stretched neo-choppers
being turned out by seemingly anyone with tattoos and a weakness for titty bars.
The bike got lots of ink (see “Old School Cool,”
CW, July, 2002), but soon after, Foster went subterranean. There was a development deal with aftermarket giant Custom Chrome Inc. leading to a signature line of gas tanks, but no follow-up bikes. Foster returned to his Salinas Boyz workshop near the central California coast and cranked out his particular style of hot-rod and lead
sled, including a ’36 Ford tail-dragger for Metallica’s Kirk Hammett (Ford Racing 302 up front, honking big guitar amp in the back) and a sano '56 F-100 pickup that took home the Chip Foose Design of Excellence award at the Grand National Roadster Show.
Car business running straight and true, Foster wanted back into bikes, so the Bobber went on the block (asking price $62,000), though its 1960s dragbike design ethic is very much in evidence on the machine pictured here, built in an impossible 10 days for “Biker Build-Off.” That time stipulation is new to the series this year, apparently an effort to cut down on TV production costs-this despite boffo ratings, sales of DVDs and reruns ad nauseam.
No problem, thought Foster, who started the project with just one item in hand, the neat finned, castaluminum oil tank cover, a collaboration with motorcycle sculptor Jeff Decker that
soon should be for sale on the website (see, he’s learning). The frame came straight from the Custom Chrome catalog, a stock-dimension Softail-style, though Foster tweaked the back end to get rid of some castings, clean things up and lose an inch ol wheelbase. Likewise, the gas tank is a CCI piece, split down the middle, pinched at the rear and with a clean modeling line chiseled into its sides.
Belly-to-the-ground is important to Foster, who
lowered the front end by sectioning 2lA inches out of the Wide Glide sliders then welding things back up. Suspension travel at both ends is about 2 inches, enough to keep the worst of the kidneycrunchers at bay.
Final assembly was a bit of a flog, especially as a couple of days out there was still a big hole where the engine should have been, but “Big Mike” Rouse from BMC Choppers in Bend, Oregon, sent down a 96-inch S&S
Evo as hand luggage, J&P Cycles donated a magneto, and a non-stop, nail-biting 12-hour wrench session had the bike making noise at the stroke of midnight.
Cole & Co. didn’t win their “Build-Off” episode; the trophy went to Hank Young and one of his typically retrolooking quasi board-trackers. “Yeah, Hank went a little Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on me,” laughs Foster.
Never mind, it’s good to have the Salinas Boy back in the game.
David Edwards
