A Tribute to Arlen Ness, 1939-2019
Words & photography by Michael Lichter
From the earliest times, Arlen Ness was a trendsetter, quietly and steadily producing some of the most creative custom bikes the motorcycle world has ever seen. Many of his innovative ideas and designs evolved into popular styles and trends. Year after year, even when custom bike building was going through hard times, he came out with spectacular new machines that caught the attention of the media and the riding public.
It all goes back to a fateful day in 1963, when a 24-year-old Arlen drove by a Harley-Davidson knucklehead for sale while driving home after working his day job delivering furniture. With his wife Bev at home with their two-year-old Sherri and pregnant with Cory, Arlen took $300 of his bowling winnings to go buy the knuckle the next day. His friend Charlie had to ride the bike most of the way home, since Arlen had never ridden a suicide clutch, but he did get on it and, after killing it a dozen times, managed to pull it into his garage. Bev opened the door, took one look, and promptly slammed the door on him.
Arlen rode that ’47 knuck everywhere. He soon made friends with other riders and got involved with the motorcycle scene. They hung out in Harry Brown’s Hayward garage, where Harry painted bikes on the side and where Arlen learned as much as he could by helping Harry out. All the while, he practiced his own paint, graphics and flaming techniques by working on Harry’s customers’ bikes, as well as his own Harley. Every year, that knuckle got rebuilt and was put into shows, but it was the Oakland Roadster Show every January that really mattered. It was 1977 when that knuckle, then known as Untouchable, finally won that “Show of Shows,” and then things really started to change. No longer was he going to rip apart the knuckle just to rebuild it the next year. Instead, he saved Untouchable as it was and began working on a second custom bike, thus starting what would become an impressive collection of one-off motorcycles.
Without realizing it, Arlen was also creating a model for an industry before an industry could even be fathomed, and it was one that has lasted for decades. Every year, after Arlen’s bikes won awards at bike shows, they got the attention of the press and got photographed for magazines like this one. Once on the newsstands, the phone at Arlen’s shop started ringing.
Keep in mind, this was a time when prefabricated aftermarket parts were just becoming available, so there wasn’t much out there. When guys saw a set of custom handlebars in magazines, such as Arlen’s Ram Horn Bars, they snapped them up in record numbers. In fact, handlebars were the first Arlen Ness products available. “People seemed to like them, so I went down to Superior Tube, and they bent more up for me,” Arlen said in the book I wrote titled Arlen Ness: The King of Choppers “Then, I’d take them to a polishing shop, bring them back to weld the bungs in them, and then have them chromed. My first production may have been twenty sets. That was a big investment for me at the time, but people would see my handlebars in a magazine on a bike and they would call up to order them. I didn’t know anything about advertising.”
Arlen realized that the average guy might not be able to afford an entire Arlen Ness custom bike like the ones they saw featured in Easyriders, but they could certainly afford a set of Ness bars, or mirrors or grips, and the rest was two-wheeled history.
All Arlen had to do (a bit of an understatement) was keep coming out with incredible customs and fabulous parts year after year, which is all he really wanted to do in the first place. One thing he learned along the way was to recognize his own shortcomings and make up for them by enlisting outside help to achieve something as outstanding as he envisioned.
Consequently, when the business was still small, he came up with the tagline “Quality Motorcycle Parts from California Craftsmen,” so whether a bike was being displayed at a show or featured in a motorcycle magazine, contributors like Bob “Mun” Munroe, Jim Davis, Danny Gray, Jeff McCann, Horst and Dick DeBenedictis were clearly identified and thanked. These craftsmen appreciated the credit, as well as Arlen’s sense of honesty, fairness and respect. Their response was to strive for perfection, producing the highest-quality work possible.
Following those fourteen years of working/reworking the ’47 knuck known as Untouchable, new bikes featuring his parts and accessories started coming out on a more regular basis. The first major custom bike to follow Untouchable came out later the same year (1977) in the form of a 2,000 cc twin-engine supercharged Sportster with two-Weber carbs, four oil bags, two batteries, and center-hub steering. Two-Bad, as it was named, certainly startled the crowds, especially when they got close to the bike, as Arlen would use a remote garage door opener to start the beast up from a distant vantage point. It was pure Ness.
At about this time Arlen, along with Dave Perewitz and Donnie Smith, started the Hamsters MC. This was a fairly loose group in the early years, but as time went on, it became a full-on club that focused on builders linked by their addiction to custom bikes. The Hamsters get together at rallies and events all around the country, although now their ranks have grown into the hundreds. Some of Arlen’s closest and oldest relationships have come through the Hamsters, which now includes both his son Cory and grandson Zach. To this day, you can see several hundred Hamsters riding in a pack as they pass through Sturgis, Daytona and other bike events in their distinctive yellow T-shirts.
Back at Arlen’s Motorcycle Ness-eccities on East 14th Street in Sean Leandro (they were in their third location on the same street by this time in 1978), Arlen unveiled the antique-inspired Nesstique, with its thin chrome moly 5/8 tubing and 21-inch front and back wheels. A 93-inch shovel/knuckle dubbed Orange Blossom came out in 1984 in time to be included in the “California Dream” exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California.
In 1986, there was the corporate-sponsored street digger Accel Bike, with its 90-inch knuckster motor (Knucklehead top end with Sportster cases), and then the drag-inspired Blower Bike came out in 1987. 1990 was a big year with Ness Café (possibly inspired by Willie G’s XLCR), as well as the Ferrari Bike that he had been working on for several years, going back to preliminary sketches in 1987.
The 1990s saw huge growth in custom motorcycling, and concurrent with this was Arlen’s most productive decade ever. He came out with many “signature” bikes reflecting different inspirations. Looking back to the 1960s, he came out with several very cool choppers like Yellow Knucklehead Chopper (1990), Red Flame Chopper (1993) and Green Flame Chopper (1995). Some of his most memorable customs came to life, like Nesstalgia (1995), which is often referred to as The Chevy Bike, as well as his Art Deco-looking Smoothness (1995) that was initially sketched out by Carl Brouhard, based on a 1932 Bugati Roadster sculpture Arlen has in his house.
Arlen’s Luxury Liner custom baggers started appearing in the late 1990s with Orange Luxury Liner (1997), and the green and white Pete Ardema-powered Overhead Cam Luxury Liner (1998). Another one of these Ardema OHC engines made expressly for Arlen was used in the All-Aluminum OHC Evo (1998). By 1999, theme bikes started appearing, like the Ness County Fire Engine Bike (1999) and Ness Patrol (1999). Finishing out the decade was another Art Deco-inspired signature custom named Arrow Bike that took inspiration from open-fendered cars from the 1920s and ’30s.
By 2000, Arlen had entered the new millennium by making his son Cory vice president of Arlen Ness Inc., with the understanding that he would be responsible for the daily running of the business, while his sister Sherri headed up human resources and other business details. This gave Arlen, then in his early 60s, even more time to play with his bikes.
The decade started with a very practical bike, Screamin’ Nessessity (2000) that he rode to Sturgis several times. This custom bagger, on a heavily modified FXR frame with a 21-inch front wheel, six-speed transmission, and a nine-gallon fuel tank, was geared high so the engine only had to turn 2,700 rpms at 80 mph — perfect for those long trips to Sturgis that Arlen so loved. Engines and wheels seemed to get bigger, as did Arlen’s enthusiasm as he moved to the current location in Dublin, California, which features a museum of all of Arlen’s favorite builds from over the years.
Then came The Discovery Channel’s Biker Build-Off TV series. Arlen was featured in two of these television specials, starting with a head-to-head against his son Cory in Hawaii in 2002. While Arlen lost this bout to Cory, it was a big win-win for Arlen Ness, Inc. with all the publicity it brought. For the second build-off against a young Roland Sands, they filmed the ride and finale on location in Puerto Rico. Arlen started with a unique, one-off frame that enveloped a 145-inch S&S motor. The engine itself was modified to an OHC design, and a supercharger with two S&S carbs added to maximize performance. Roland Sands also made a spectacular bike for this show and, in the end, while Arlen was announced the winner, Roland certainly didn’t lose; this episode helped launch his career and RSD business.
One more major theme bike that needs mentioning was Arlen’s Jet Bike (2005). Arlen’s good friend Barry Cooney found the engine that originally came from a helicopter. Bob Munroe hand-fabricated the all-aluminum body, and Carl Brouhard painted realistic graphics that are so detailed, it seems rust has built up behind the painted rivets from so many flight hours. While the paint may be “faux,” there is nothing fake about the afterburner exhaust that shoots ten-foot flames.
Since the Jet Bike, Arlen continued to release one or two customs each year, although his focus moved to touring bikes, especially since he wanted a custom worthy of riding to Sturgis every year with his Hamster buddies. Many of these bikes have been on the Victory platform, since Arlen andCory had a strong relationship with the brand, most notably, designing the Ness Signature Series Vegas and Kingpin models.
So, what was Arlen’s secret to success? Really, it wasn’t much of a secret at all. It all started with his manner and attitude: easygoing, honest, and always there with a smile. Add to this the team he assembled, which included not only those “California Craftsmen” he sought out from the very beginning, but also his many employees over the years and his incredibly supportive family.
Arlen Ness will forever be known as one of the most esteemed and accomplished custom motorcycle builders in the world. He is the benchmark against whom all other builders are measured.
On July 12 this year, Arlen was to celebrate his 80th birthday. It has been an honor for Easyriders magazine to showcase his many amazing custom creations over the years though my contributions. Here’s to the “King of Customs.” He will be truly missed by his family, his thousands of friends, and the millions who love and admire his work and legacy in the custom motorcycle world. He was the best of us.
