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Dealer sticker
- Flx48
- Posts: 262
- Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2020 3:11 pm
- Location: NW CT
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Re: Dealer sticker
Bought the bike ('60 R69) from Sal at Ghost MC in Port Washington in the early '70s, after some of the long winded bartering for which he was known.
He used to put a classified ad in the Sunday NY Times at tax time (and it seemed it was almost always tax time)
Sal had sold the bike to the original owner 14 years earlier, who'd brought it back when he felt he was too old to continue riding.
Ghost was a unique m/c shop in the greater NYC area during their earlier heyday.
An older three story brick building, ramp down from the sidewalk through a garage door to the lower level workshop, the street level was sales, and top floor was parts department and offices, they seemed to sell every brand of bike, and ran three shifts of mechanics.
Added the sidecar (also a '60) a couple of years later, which was acquired from our very own, and most knowledgeable, Somer Hooker of Knoxville; the s/c was also white, so matching year and color seemed the perfect match.
The other dealer sticker pic is the bike ('56 R69) that belonged to my BMW mentor, (he'd roll in his grave with laughter if he heard me call him that, but that's how I felt) an older German mechanic who'd emigrated after the war, and ran a one man BMW shop a hundred yards down the street from my childhood home when I was growing up; his shop was my home away from home.
After I finished high school and moved away, I heard he'd died, and so went back looking for his bike; it was special to me, after watching him roar around on it for all those years.
I found it a few months later, a couple of towns over; the guy who'd gotten ahold of it had pitched it into the weeds after losing control and breaking the right cylinder/head clean off, I gave $75 for it.
I found a new crank and other parts for it at Peter Ondrak's place, on the ring road outside Munich; there was not much in the way of parts availability here in the states in those days.
He sold Earles fork parts and refurbished ex-official (green) bikes for export in a collection of what looked like little wooden chicken coops, he also had a really great collection of prewar bikes squirreled away in a lockup under a nearby apartment block.
He used to advertise in the classifieds on the back of the old stapled VBMWO newsletter.
Got a sticker story?
Please share it with us.
Best-
George