A fun day at the bomber factory…

My good buddy Jerry sent this YouTube video to me, and as soon as I saw it I knew it was going on the blog.   It has nothing to do with motorcycles (or does it?…more on that in a moment), but in the meantime, take a look at this…

So back to this idea of bullets, bombs, bombers, and bikes…what’s the connection?

All of these things involve volume production, and that has led to some interesting family trees.   Many years ago I worked in the munitions industry.   What always struck me as fascinating was this:  One of our biggest competitors was none other than, yep, you guessed it:  Harley-Davidson.   Harley had a plant (somewhere in Pennsylvania, I believe) that manufactured bomb casings.

The linkage goes back further than that, though.   Ever hear of Enfield motorcycles?  Their history is long and interesting, and it includes production of Enfield rifles.   And how about BSA?  That actually stands for Birmingham Small Arms, and those folks manufactured rifles, too.  In fact, in the old days if you looked closely at the original BSA logo, it consisted of three stacked rifles.   BMW made engines and other things for the Germans in World War II.   And our very own Mustang was an offshoot of Gladden Products, an aerospace components manufacturer during World War II.   There’s even a thought that the original Mustang name was based on John Gladden’s aerospace work and the P-51 Mustang (one of the most beautiful airplanes ever made, in my opinion).

The aviation and military motif emerges constantly in both regular production and custom motorcycles, as exhibited by our first P-51 custom bike…one that sold within minutes of being posted on the blog…

That’s it for now, folks.  Twin Peaks Steve stopped by the plant a short while ago with his beautiful Bobber, and he and I are going for a ride.  In keeping with the theme of the day, I think I’ll sneak out on Steve’s personal ride…the Sarge!

Later, my friends…