Onward and Upward…

Boy oh boy, we sure have been having a cold snap here in California. I must be getting old, because it’s been cold enough to keep me from riding for the last several days.  My buddy Jim W and I got out to the rifle range yesterday, and it was so cold up there it was snowing!   The Baja Blaster is stashed away in my garage with the trickle charger on it.  If it gets a bit warmer I’ll fire it up this weekend and grab a few photos.  One nice thing about the cold weather is there’s snow in the mountains and the air is clear…and that makes for some great photos!

The new 250cc P-51 CSC motorcycles are coming off the line now and they sure are sweet. I just came in from the plant (it’s cold out there, too!) and I especially noticed a black P-51 with wire wheels.  It is just awesome.  The 150cc bikes are nice (and that’s what I ride), but that 250 is a big step up.

The 150cc and 250cc bikes are physically the same size; it’s just the engine and gearing that’s different. I’m the guy who did a lot of the high speed runs during the 250cc development program and I helped Steve and the engineers determine the final gearing.   Yeah, I’m bragging.   That sure was fun.  I’ll put some photos of our recent production bikes (including the 250cc P-51s) on the blog later today.

One of our 250cc test mules, with the engine strategically hidden in this photo. I touched 80 mph on this bike!

More good news…I’ve been going hot and heavy on another project that I finished up a couple of days ago (it’s a book on engineering creativity, and if you want to buy a copy you can do so here).   I especially like the cover photo.   It shows a simple gate latch and a 1909 Mauser. It’s been said that Paul Mauser (who perfected the bolt action rifle) drew his inspiration from a gate bolt.  The book’s cover shows it well.

You know, most engineering designs are not brand new – they are improvements to existing products. And many engineering designs borrow heavily from the past. One of my favorite examples are the modern gun systems used on high performance aircraft.

An early Gatling gun. Note the barrel cluster, and compare it to the modern Gatling below.

A modern Gatling gun, based on a century-old design.

I worked on Vulcan gun systems when I was in the Army, and I was surprised when I learned that they were based on the original Gatling guns.   Really cool stuff, with parallels with what Steve did with the California Scooter Company.   He used the original Mustang as his inspiration.  Then, when CSC created the new 250cc motorcycle, we based its name on the original P-51 Mustang airplane.  It’s all very cool.

Steve with a Greaser and a P-51 Mustang.

One of our first P-51 customs...which had a World War II aircraft paint theme!

Speaking of which, if you haven’t picked up the latest issue of Motorcycle Classics magazine, you should.  It has our story on the original Mustang motorcycle and an accompanying story on California Scooter Company.   It’s a great read.

So, the engineering creativity book is done, and now Jim Cavanaugh and I can turn our attention to the next project…the Mustang and CSC book.  I’m going to dig into that one this weekend, and Jim and I will have it wrapped up in the next 90 days.  The Mustang book will have lots of cool photos of vintage Mustang and CSC motorcycles, and we’ll keep you posted on its progress here in the blog. You’ll be able to buy it through CSC and other outlets, and trust me on this….this is a book you will want to read!