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Building Sidecars for the Good old boy’s
After living two grand adventures in my young life I decided to make another life change and move to South Carolina in the late 1980’s. I moved onto Great Oaks and went about meeting at least one new person a day. Having had an interest in Hot Rods from the time I was a teenager I soon found many of the groups of guys that were into cars. Like minded people always seem to find each other and I found it easy to meet new friends. Having different interests made it easy to meet new people so I just never knew who I was going to meet next. Over time I took an Engineering job and headed up a team. It wasn’t very long and I joined some different professional groups meeting new people all the time. It was interesting meeting people ranging from guys that worked on the floor to the heads of different corporations. I even met some of the old money guys that grew up in the area. The old money crème de la crème all went to school together years earlier and were a close nit group. I was always allowed to be their personal guests but was still an outsider. I helped a few of them with designing new products for their startup companies. Many of us outsiders that had moved to the area came with a library of information that these different groups wanted to tap into it. The area that I moved to was the fastest growing area in the country at the time with new businesses moving in every day. It was like a modern day industrial gold rush, with opportunity around every corner. When I would call back up North and tell my old friends about what was going on almost every one of them had that typical New England skepticism.
While working in a startup company heading up an Engineering team I became good friends with one of the welders who worked down on the shop floor. In one of our conversations I mentioned that in a past life I had built motorcycle sidecars. A few days later I brought in some picture albums and left them with him. They were full of pictures of my sidecars along with hydroplanes, race cars and airplane’s. My new friend Ken passed the photo albums around the shop and all the guys on the floor all of a sudden wanted to became my new friend. These were all guys that built things with their hands and understood what it took. Not like the team I had upstairs that couldn’t put a wheelbarrow together even with instructions, but because they had a sheep skin we had to pay them the big bucks and the guys on the floor that most times could hardly pay their bills. Before long I was having lunch with the guys down on the floor on one day and the directors of the company the next. I made trips down on the floor several times a day while upstairs I was putting out fires all day long. Between sitting in on meetings with the directors, heading up the Engineering team, and setting up the fiberglass department, I was one busy guy.
At lunch one day with Ken the topic of building sidecars came up. I had been looking at the Harley’s and how sales had taken off and had thought about designing a trailer for the Harley’s. My idea was to take the old Classic sidecar body and turn it into a trailer not changing the body style and designing a cover for the passenger compartment area. I thought that a sidecar looking body as a trailer with custom wheels and fenders that had a smooth vintage look would be pretty cool. I had designed a trailer back in the 1970’s that was very unique because it was only twenty nine inched wide and could be taken into a motel room. It had a set of handles so that the owner could use after removing it from the bike that made it easy to pull around. I never put my one of a kind trailer on the market with everything else that I had going on at the time. So I looked at building new molds so that I could build a sidecar or a trailer out of the same mold. The trailer had a rain gutter lip around the perimeter of the passenger compartment and when building a sidecar all I had to do was cut the lip off. Ken and I decided to start building sidecars first and if it took off we could also build a few trailers. In my garage at Great Oaks I took my original mold of my Clasic sidecar and built a new model/plug. I added the rain gutter lip and also spread the center of the body another half inch so that a chrome trim piece could be installed hiding the seam. I then built a class A mold that allowed for the color to be in the part eliminating the need for a paint job.
Ken and I then put two sidecars together, one SL-440 and the other a Classic from my new mold. We placed both sidecars on stands that allowed them to sit level and at the same time they could be slid up next to a bike so that the customer could see what it would look like. The Classic didn’t have a wheel on it because it was going to be up to the customer to find a wheel. You would think that this would be a problem, but in the end it never was. We made the trip up to Charlotte to a motorcycle event and got a space in manufacturer’s row along with all the other Harley stuff being sold. It was a great time and a lot of fun being in the middle of this cross between a carnival and a circus with all the performers walking among us. You know what they say. “Some people watch the show and some people are the show”. We no more than got our sidecars set up and we had a crowd around us. It seemed at the time that these guys were just waiting for someone to show up with something new, in our case sidecars. It was a first in the area and these guys were definitely interested. It didn’t take very long and Ken and I figured out an easy way to talk to the customers. We would let the guys ask us about the sidecars. We would listen to their accent, or vernacular. If they were from the North Ken would slowly turn and move out of the way letting me talk to the customer. If they had the southern accent I would slowly turn and let Ken talk with the good old boys. It worked great because once Ken had their interest and attention he would then introduce me and by that time it didn’t matter if ”I wasn’t from around their”. At the same time t
here were many transplants like myself from the North. I could talk their talk. We would sell between three and five units at these shows. Every sidecar that we sold was the Classic model. They liked my SL-440 or they said they did, but I couldn’t give one away if my life depended on it. Every other show that we did we brought just one Classic to it and I never again attempted to sell the SL model in the South. Arrangements would be made for the good old boys to come to Great Oaks in around three or four weeks to have us mount their new sidecar to their bikes. These guys were an absolute pleasure to do business with. As mentioned earlier I knew that everyone would have their own idea as to what wheel they would want so it was left up them to bring down a wheel and I figured it into the price.
In all we built around fifteen units and had the opportunity to meet some really great guys. They came from all walks of life but the strange thing was almost every customer or their best friend who they would bring along knew about or could weld and fabricate. In my old shop in New Hampshire back in the day I don’t think one in a hundred would know how. When Ken and I were setting up their sidecars they would be looking and before long would join in and help. By the time we would be finished they knew the complete set up and what made it work. I had twenty two acres at Great Oaks and the driveways were over half of a mile long. It was funny, I would give the instructions and the customer would drive as Ken sat in the sidecar enjoying the ride. We made many new friends and I always enjoyed “The Good Old Boy’s”.
A few short stories:
Most of our customers came from North Carolina and one such gentleman Grady had a good reason for wanting a sidecar. He had a sportster that he had owned for many years. He had to stop riding because of a health issue that I had never heard of before. In his twenty’s he started to have problems with arthritis and as time went on his fingers and toes started to shrink. It sounds crazy but within just a few years his fingers were the length of what you and I have up to our knuckles. Or the “Proximal inter-phalangeal joint”. He just couldn’t twist the grip, pull the clutch, and hold the bike up all at the same time so he wanted a sidecar so he could hold himself up. In his case he brought the bike down to Great Oaks and left it with me for as long as it took. I had it for a few weeks and even took it with the new sidecar to a motorcycle event. Grady came down and picked it up but the day he arrived he wasn’t feeling that great and had his buddy drive. He asked if I would give him a ride in the sidecar so I drove him around the property all the time with him smiling from ear to ear. I told Grady that I was concerned because I had always taught my customers how to drive their rigs or had one of my guys that knew what they were doing perform the task. He told me that he lived way out in the country on a road that had very little traffic and that he would take it easy until he had some experience driving. Once he was satisfied with the rig we loaded it up onto his trailer and he got into the passenger’s seat and his buddy drove him home.
A few weeks later he called and asked if I could design a foot gas pedal for the throttle for his Sportster. Evidently his hands had shrunk even more from the time he put his bike away and when he got his sidecar. He couldn’t twist the throttle. I told him to bring it on down and I would come up with something. I should have taken a picture of the foot throttle that I built. It was different driving the rig with a foot pedal like a car, but it worked great. When he came back down I asked if he would like to try the rig out because he looked like he was having a good day. He took it around the property like he had been driving it for years. In the end it all worked out and for all I know he’s still driving it.
These pictures are before I designed and installed the foot throttle. Note the sidecar wheel that Grady brought down for me to use.
The next fellow was also out of North Carolina and had a construction company. Bill had me build him a sidecar so that he could take his young daughter Lynn out with him and if she got tired she could sleep in the sidecar. I built a long cushion for the bottom seat so that it would be comfortable for her to sleep on. When they arrived on a Saturday morning we got started right away. My wife asked if Lynn , Bills young daughter would like to see the horses. She was a little shy at first but took immediately to my wife. That’s what being a teacher is about. The two of them walked down to the barn area to visit the horses. A short time later the two make their way back to the garage and little Lynn asked her Dad if she can go for a ride on the horse. My wife had taught children as young as four years old how to ride. Bill and my wife talked for a while and a little while later the three of them head for the barn with Bill carrying his camera as Ken and I continued working on setting up the sidecar. My wife lifted Lynn up onto the saddle and she climbed aboard behind her. As they rode around the property Bill was taking pictures. My wife then asked Bill if it would be OK if Lynn rode alone as my wife held the lead and walked along beside. Our horse Hasan has been used for years teaching children as young as four years old without ever an incident. Bill gave his OK as they road up to the riding ring. I looked out the back door of the garage and noticed the three of them in the riding ring and told Ken “You have to see this. Ken and I took a break and walked over to the riding ring. I wanted to take this in, a little girl riding on a big horse with my wife walked along giving her instructions, as the Dad was taking pictures. This is what it was all about and the reason I purchased “Great Oaks”. When they were finished riding I called out “Let’s have some lunch”. I had planned ahead and picked up a few things the night before figuring that we may have some hungry people the next day. My wife pulled the saddle of Hasan and let him run the property with her other three Arabian horses. As we walked up to the pool area we all watched the horses as they were running, jumping and bucking, each one trying to outdo the other. Lunch was served poolside and when we were finished Ken, Bill and I went back to work on the sidecar. My wife and Lynn stayed at the pool and as we were walking away I heard my wife ask if Lynn would like to see some books about Dinosaur’s. What kid doesn’t like Dinosaurs? We finished setting up the sidecar and I took the rig out first running it up and down the driveway. I then gave the horses a little run as I headed over towards where they were grazing. “What was this big thing coming to get them”? They took off running and I headed back to the garage. As I pulled up everyone was all smiles as my wife and Lynn came out to see the sidecar. It was Bill’s turn and I went over the instructions that I had given him earlier as we mounted the sidecar one more time. Bill got on the bik
e and Ken climbed into the sidecar and off they went. After a few trips up and down the driveway and a few turns around the center circle in front of the house Bill was looking good. Ken got out of the sidecar and Bill shut the bike off and got off. He then asked Lynn if she would like to take a ride. As she ran over to Daddy so that he could lift her into the sidecar I asked if I could take a picture. The little one “pitched a fit” as they say in the South. She started crying not wanting me to take her picture. My wife walked over and had a little talk with her wiping the tears from her eyes and everything was OK, my wife would take the picture. Bill fired up the rig and off they went Daddy and the little one riding in Dad’s sidecar just like he had been dreaming about. When Bill pulled back up to the garage he shut off the rig and said “Johnny you made my dream come true, thanks”. We loaded up Bill’s rig onto his car trailer and he placed Lynn into her car seat. Before they drove out threw the gate Lynn was asleep.
Bill and Lynn just after the “pitching a fit episode”, and just before the first of many sidecar rides.
Ken and I had the chance to meet many great people building sidecars. For me it was truly a learning experience because even though I had been half way around the world and had spent most of my life in the North. I got to know the “Southern Good Old Boys” much better and grew to not only respect, but learned how to do business with them. It’s been twenty five years and I have many great good old boy friends. The biggest mistake I see with guys that move down from the North is they bring the attitude with them and many times within eighteen months their headed back North with their tail between their legs spouting how they hate the South.
As for Ken he got injured on the job at the plant when a fire in one of the units broke out. He got a lung full of gashes fumes and had to move on or he wouldn’t come back to the same job, I’m not sure which. With his skill he never had a problem getting a job and later when I was doing design work for some of the Old Money guys I called Ken in to do some fabricating work. Word went out to the different guys and once they saw his work all the old money guys that owned different companies would call Ken in on almost any new job that that they were planning. But things don’t always end on a good note.
A few years later while Ken was fishing out on the lake with his two young sons and a friend his youngest boy fell overboard. Why he didn’t have on a life vest no one knows. He went to the bottom and in an instant Ken dove in and as luck would have it found him and brought him to the surface. They were around one hundred feet from the shore so Ken held his son up on his side as he side stroked to shore. He barely made it to shore and pulling himself and his son onto dry lane. With his son resting on his chest Ken had a hart attach and died a few minutes later. The autopsy found that Ken had an enlarged hart something that he never knew. Everyone in the community was in shock, especially when you lose one of the good ones. Even though my time with Ken was limited in years the times will always be special to me.
I hope you enjoyed the stories about” The Good Old Boys “and I would like to dedicate it to the Memory of a good friend the Late Ken Turner.
Thanks for reading,
Johnny Sweet
Excellent story, as usual, Johnny. Glad you came South and made the effort to meet and do business with the good ol' Southern boys. Treat them with respect and they will treat you with respect.
You did that and now you are one of us. And a darned good writer too. Keep the stories coming and sharing your history with us.
Johnny have you ever considered putting all your stories in a book? It would be some interesting reading! Thank you for sharing them here!
I second that Tom. Excellent idea!!! By the way, what breed is your riding buddy?
Johnny, thanks for using the privilege of age and running off at the mouth, as they say. I have enjoyed all your stories, here and other sidecar sites, and have to say also that you do a great job of getting in writing.
Wolfhound - 1/19/2013 6:57 PM
I second that Tom. Excellent idea!!! By the way, what breed is your riding buddy?
He's a Goldendoodle Wolfhound. My third rescue at the same shelter we found him at. We check four shelters between here and north Idaho but the last three, Archie (a Boxer), Henry, (a 4 way mix) and now Petey have all come from SCRAPS, the Spokane County shelter. They said he was a Labradoodle but DNA said otherwise. It doesn't matter to me, he's my good riding buddy and that's what counts!
From the picture I would go with Goldendoodle. You are to be commended for going the resecue route. There are far too many dog in shelters that need good homes like yours.
I have had dogs all my life, got into showdogs in 1961 showing Borzoi(Russian Wolfhounds). Got my AKC Pro Handlers license in 73 and retired from handling in 87(knees finally gave out)
and started a vending booth at shows selling equipment and sharpening blades and shears. Retired from that and now have a small mail order and local sharpening business. I am 77 this
year and still dont know what I want to be when I grow up. Wish I had Johnnys mechanical and design abilities. (that got me back to the subject!!!)
I agree, we don't want to hijack Johnny's thread...
Ralph when You grow up tell us.
I hope to stay what my nick name indicates.
Funny Johnny has always joined several worlds at a time.
Peter Pan, did a background check on me did you? That is OK!! Actually I am not in a big hurry to grow up. Enjoying learning more about sidecars and my second childhood too much to grow
up right now.
I did not before, but as You invited me to do so I just may quote your own words about a hot seated Vespa:
"... A lot of starter problems !!!"
That's pretty cool - another gentleman who has been building sidecars for a long time is Mr. Spalding from Texas. He lost his legs to a booby-trap in Vietnam in 68 up near Dong Ha. He's a wild man to talk to! I ended up with one of his cars and have really enjoyed the brief time I've had with it.
I was there in 65-66 with the 3rd Marines. A battery operated grunt - and that crest on the front is quite familiar as I've seen similar on the front of green berets - - -
Semper Fi
Steve
Steve N - 1/22/2013 10:08 AM
I was there in 65-66 with the 3rd Marines. A battery operated grunt - and that crest on the front is quite familiar as I've seen similar on the front of green berets - - -
Semper Fi
Steve
Thanks Steve, and to the many others that have sent me emails. I receive emails almost every day and they are appreciated. Some of you should consider writing your stories and sharing them with others, and I think many are very interesting and I do enjoy reading them.
I was never going to disclose that the Special Forces Flash was designed on the front of my sidecars. It’s been forty years and someone finally figured it out. I’m glad that Steve a combat veteran was the one that figured it out. To some it’s probably not a big deal and they wouldn’t understand the significance anyway. To me that’s OK because the protected shouldn’t need to know about such things. My little secret, if that what I can call it has always meant a great deal to me. The reason I came up with the design and went in that direction is a thought-provoking story. If you look at Dick Lion’s artist rendering in the post having to do with how we designed the first SL-110 sidecar body you will note that the lines on the front area run in the opposite direction than what I ended up with. How it all came about was because of a phone call that I received late one Friday night just as I was in the process of building the armature for the original sidecar design. The timing was just by chance and nothing more. The call came out of nowhere and I wasn’t prepared for it. It was from one of my Army combat buddy’s that like me came back to the world. You see back in the day when our tours ran out some of us chose to return back to the world and start a new life. Those that gave the ultimate sacrifice were brought home to be laid to rest. We still had too many missing in action and some amongst us decided that they had to stay and fight on. Soldiering is a hard dirty business and if you stay to long your final number will come up and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. You see the group of us had all been in training together for over two years before we were sent to do our time in “Hell”. They say that only three out of every one hundred ever make it through Special Forces training and get to wear the “Green Beret”. We as a group had been through so much together that we were inseparable but as we would find out nothing in life is forever. Once back in the world I would never again find the brotherhood and comradery that I once had with our group. So when I was told that we had lost another it hit me hard. One by one we were losing our buddy’s and no matter how strong we thought we were it was devastating. When I hung the phone up I sat and thought for a while about if I should have stayed but soon knew that I had been away from a soldier’s life to long because once you turn that corner there is no going back. It was cold out that night and as I walked from the house into the garage with nothing more than a shirt on the cold air hit me. As I stood in front of the sidecar armature shivering and looking at the design all I could see in my mind was my fallen buddy David’s face with that big smile. The vision was from the time four of us made the trip up to Washington DC for a weekend. We were standing on the steps of the Capital building dressed in our Class A uniforms with everything polished, starched and pressed from our jump boots to the Green Berets atop our heads. I kept seeing the “Flash on David’s beret and at that instant is when I got the idea to put the design on the front of my sidecar. At the time I was thinking about the group and every man’s “Fidelity” and thought that It should be honored. I had a piece of flat stock metal tack welded in place going in the oboist direction like in the drawing so I took a pair of pliers and wiggled it back and forth till the spot welds broke and removed it. I looked around the garage and found another piece of flat stock and bent it into shape holding it in place and the design for the Flash was born. The next morning once I heated up the garage I worked with the metal and welded the new design of the Flash into place, the rest is history. It’s been forty years and every time I look at the front of my sidecars I still see the outline of the flash.
Over the years I pained hundreds of sidecars and each and every one had to be meticulously hand sanded. Not one of my sidecars ever left my shop that wasn’t perfect. All of the first two models were sprayed with acrylic lacquer the same type of paint that was used by General Motors. Lacquer requires a minimum of six double coats of paint with a short drying period between double coats. On the sidecars that I painted the 5th groups flash an additional six coats were applied because of the second color and when needed a clear coat was applied. The more coats the longer they had to set before they could be polished to a high luster. Painting had to be scheduled so that sufficient curing time and polishing could be performed coordinating with the customers pick up schedule. I would always be asked if the paint design was a decal because they couldn’t feel the edges.
Many a young teenagers that came along and learned how to work in the shop started out sanding on a sidecar body. The shop was always a busy place and I started every day at seven in the morning and got most of the welding and fabrication work done before anyone showed up. As the morning wore on many came and went and around noon time we would do a head count and if there were enough we would form up in a caravan of sidecar’s and all head out to lunch. The afternoons always drew a crowd and around four o’clock it would start to thin out until the five o’clock after work crowd would stop in. Around nine thirty at night it would be down to my closest friends and I would work up till eleven and shut it down and got ready for the next day. The days were long but we were living the dream and it was all because of the sidecars that made it possible. Many times as I would be sanding a body for a final inspection I would take a look around the shop. The radio would be blasting the latest Rock and Roll music while a group might be in one corner discussing this or that. The conversations were never boring and many times I was called in to referee, or elucidate a fact. Sometimes old customers were visiting and the kids were in the toy box having fun while the girlfriends may have been working on something. The something always changed from month to month. It could be ceramics this month or knitting the next. The most extreme was when they decided to make custom handmade fishing flies and no one fished. It was never ending and I made it a point to be the biggest supporter of whatever it was they were all into. As all this was going on I would be finish sanding on a sidecar body and when I got to the flash lines I would spend the extra time carefully sanding so that I didn’t remove the edge of the body line. How many times when I got to the front flash line would I start thinking about my buddy’s in the group? Many times my mind would go back to the same place; it could be a time when we were in training and something funny happened, or to a time when we were in the thick of the fray and the outcome could have gone one way or the other. The entire time that I would be working and sanding on the bodies the shop would be like a beehive of activity. No one ever knew what I was thinking about, but why should they, those thoughts were not for this group, they were the protected and they didn’t need to be thinking or knowing about such things. So all these years I had my little secret that only I knew about and every time I look at my sidecar I see the same images in my mind.
It’s been over forty years and I chose to build sidecar of all things. It could have been swimming pools or satellite dishes but it was sidecars. One thing was for sure I was going to manufacture something but I don’t think whatever it would have been that I could have as good a time as we did manufacturing motorcycle sidecars. Because of sidecars and a few other business ventures I was able to have a place that was almost magical. A safe place that people could come and hang out. If they wanted to they could learn a few things that they might take with them when they went on to live their own personal life’s adventure. Many people came and went, and some strong friendships developed. I couldn’t tell you how many young people learned how to not only work but things that one can’t learn in a book. Someday I may write about some of our young people that started out working on sidecars and went on out into the world and made something of themselves: some very successful in their own right.
The 5th Group 1st Special Forces (Airborne) RVN flash without the crest.
Around fifteen sidecars were painted with the 5th Groups "Flash". I was limited to only two colors so the yellow background couldn't be represented.
Five of six Benelli's were all painted the same and sold at a Benelli dealership.
Some customers wanted odd color combinations. This sidecar was special ordered after the SL-220 came out.
I even had my own personal sidecar that traveled with us for a short time painted with the Flash on it.
Thanks for reading,
Johnny Sweet
Johnny Sweet, keep writing. You have a book in the making here and I would be the first to buy it.
