![]() This crashed bike is the only Captain America bike known to exist and is in the late Paul Allen’s collection in Washington. In the course of filming the final scene, one of the two Captain America bikes is crashed as Fonda is shot while riding it. Though in years past a documented Easy Rider Captain America bike was on display at the National Motorcycle Museum, (shown in the gallery photos) the Captain America bike and Billy bike now on display are replicas of the two matching bike “props” made for the 1969 cult classic motion picture. ” The “far out” look of the chopper was a symbol, a visual, and part of a Bohemian lifestyle that Hopper and Fonda used to get their points across in the film. Dennis Hopper noted, “like with Rock n’ Roll, the African-Americans were way ahead of us. Vaughs organized the creation of the Captain America and Billy choppers with his mentor, Ben Hardy, in the style Hardy had been building for years: outlaw street dragsters and stretched out choppers. Filmmaker Cliff “Soney” Vaughs had been riding them since 1961, and was hired by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as Associate Producer of a new project Fonda called ‘The Loners’, to be a “motorcycle Western.” Vaughs provided the name ‘Easy Rider’, and his real-life adventures riding a chopper through the South in 1963, including being shot at from a pickup truck that U-turned to chase him in Alabama, where he marched with Dr Martin Luther King Jr. The stylish motorcycle profile of cut steering heads, long forks and sissy bars had been happening for about a decade. The film Easy Rider did not invent the chopper, but it certainly locked it into our minds. The arrival of Easy Rider, and Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday a year or so later, confirmed Americans loved motorcycles, enjoyed a little risk involved in riding, even if their parents did not condone the new morals held by this generation. ![]() Motorcycle sales had been growing exponentially. War in Southeast Asia had split our country, exacerbated by the draft put in place to develop a force to defend the West’s interests. For many young Americans, different clothes and music, long hair, free love and experimentation with drugs were in motion. Children born just after World War II, so-called “baby boomers,” were coming of age around 1969 and did not hold to the same values as their parents. For one, it speaks to a generational shift, cultural changes taking place in America in the 1960’s. The Dennis Hopper – Peter Fonda motion picture is important for a number of reasons. July 14 marks 50 years since the film Easy Rider hit theaters in America. ![]() Original documented Easy Rider Captain America bike when on display in the Museum. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |