'I bought four of them from Los Angeles Police Department. 'I built the motorcycles that I rode and Dennis rode,' Fonda told WHYY's Fresh Air in 2007. Peter Fonda, meanwhile, has said that he himself played a greater role in the design and construction of the bikes. He says he also worked with Ben Hardy to purchase engines at a Los Angeles Police Department auction, and coordinated the building of the bikes.

By his account, he designed the bikes himself, and is responsible for the distinctive look of the 'Captain America' bike. everyone's got an entirely different story.'Ĭlifford Vaughs, for his part, says he acted as an associate producer early on in the film's production. 'The whole thing has been like a Rashomon experience,' producer Bill Hayward, who died in 2008, told the filmmakers who made Easy Rider: Shaking The Cage. The history of the production has also been particularly messy. Several of the key figures involved with the film have died, including director Dennis Hopper and credited screenwriter Terry Southern. More than 45 years after the production of Easy Rider, it's difficult to sort out the exact timeline of the film's creation, and the various responsibilities of the people involved. That film would eventually become Easy Rider. 'I said, 'Well, I can build whatever we need for the film right here at my place,' ' Vaughs remembers. An Associated Press story in the Los Angeles Times even noted his work in Mississippi in 1964. In bits and pieces, the story behind the Easy Rider choppers began to emerge publicly, and identified two African-American bike builders: Clifford 'Soney' Vaughs, who designed the bikes, and Ben Hardy, a prominent chopper-builder in Los Angeles, who worked on their construction.īefore working on Easy Rider, Clifford Vaughs was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In fact, two documentaries about the production of Easy Rider - 1995's Born To Be Wild and 1999's Easy Rider: Shaking The Cage - never name the men who designed and built the choppers. And curiously, the Easy Rider bikes were never associated with any particular builder.' Whose hands turned the wrenches? Who welded the steel? Most of the time, d'Orleans says, choppers are associated with their builders, 'because they are an artistic creation. I mean, suddenly people were building choppers in Czechoslovakia, or Russia, or China, or Japan.'

The bikes in Easy Rider, d'Orleans says, 'did more to popularize choppers around the world than any other film or any other motorcycle. The 'Captain America' bike is an unmistakable and legendary chopper, and has made an enormous impact on the world of motorcycling. I mean, suddenly people were building choppers in Czechoslovakia, or Russia, or China, or Japan. They did more to popularize choppers around the world than any other film or any other motorcycle.

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