For the Viceroy: The Pacific Coast revisited
The best I could do with short notice.And just MS paint.
As an alternate idea, the bombs could be replaced with silhouettes of SUVs, nuns or baby carriages.
posted by The Sum of All Monkeys at 9:53 PM
5 Comments:
The genius of this is that the Viceroy's father flew P-40s in the War, and the reference to the could not be more apt. Except that, if memory serves, he did not have teeth on his plane.
After years of taunting the poor Viceroy over the Jetson's-like appearance of the bike, to the point of doing my patented Jetson's car noise, I repent: the Pacific Coast was onto something: it was an incredibly useful motorcycle, without a trace of pretension, full of cargo capacity and comfortable without the sort of motorhome bloat you get on a Goldwing; the kind of practical, streamlined thing that as the planet melts, we might have wished we were driving millions of.
If I were a better man, unhindered by narcissistic impulses, I'd ride a sta-puff mobile.
By all accounts, they were one of the best general purpose bikes ever.
In fact, BMW has made a tidy sum building essentially the same bike but slapping it with "German engineered" badges, a bit of dodgy electronics and some strange suspension bits.
And lest we forget, charging twice as much money so as to attract the snobs.
It is without a doubt, the ugliest, best bike I ever rode.
One interesting thing about the Pacific Coast is that whenever I stopped in a rest area, the "Masses" would always ignore the Harley riders and come over to ask me about "My" bike. Non-motorcycle people loved it and anything that puts a thumb in the eye of the Harley-Chique yuppie crowd can't all be bad.
Thanks Sea Lord for the Pic. The analagy to the P-40 is most excellent. The Pacific Coast was not flashy, did not compete with other bikes of its time in any catagory. However it was comfortable, rock solid and did everything pretty well.
My general rule was that "if you want to make fun of my bike, you can't store your helmet, jacket and tank bag in my storage compartment".
Credit is for Mr. Monkey Sum!
Oh Yes. Thank you Sum! I see that you and not the Sea Lord is responsible for the PC Art. I am touched. Again, good luck with your bike. Please let us know when the feature goes to press so I can get a copy.
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