CSC Blog

Check out yet another awesome photo from Steve’s collection of vintage Mustangs and related memorabilia….

Those are Model 2 Mustangs, which are (as the name suggests) the second model the original Mustang Motor Products Corporation offered.   The Model 2 was made necessary by Villiers cutting off Mustang’s supply of two-stroke engines (used in the original Colt).   The Colt was a tiny bike; the Model 2 was a scaled up version that used Mustang’s new 322cc flathead four-stroke engine.

You can tell the bikes above are the Model 2 by the exhaust manifold.   On the original Model 2, both the intake and the exhaust were at the rear of the cylinder head, and that fancy manifold you see above routed the exhaust to the classic Mustang chrome pipe.   Later models turned the cylinder head around, so the Model 2 is the only one with the “U-turn” exhaust manifold.

Very cool stuff, and my guess this photo (assuming these were new Mustangs at the time) would have been taken around 1948 or 1949 (when the Model 2 first appeared).   I’ll go you even one better…I think I recognize the location!   My guess is that it’s at the very beginning of the Angeles Crest Highway (CA Hwy 2), overlooking Glendale, California.

Glendale, of course, is where the original Mustangs were built (just of few miles from our current CSC location).   And folks, this is muey cool for a number of reasons….not the least of which is that the Angeles Crest Highway is one of our CSC premier motorcycle rides.   You’ve seen photos of us on that magnificent road numerous times right here on the CSC blog!

It’s kind of cool to think of CSC motorcycles on the very same roads as the Model 2 Mustangs.   Awesome, actually…the same motorcycle concept on the same road, separated by 65 years!

That’s it for now….I’m off on another secret mission.   It will be warmer than the last one, and it involves meeting with another moto manufacturer.  Can’t tell you who, but the name begins with a K!

Let the good times roll!

Our good buddy Richard in Ponte Vedra Beach (that’s in Florida) just bought a metallic blue CSC-150 (a gorgeous motorcycle), and he sent this cool note to TK…

TK: 

That Nancy Rae photo on the blog was taken at Cahill’s in Tampa where I first started admiring the Mustangs.  If you could look through the window you would probably see me inside bothering someone. 

Richard

Richard, I sure know how that goes.   I wish I had all the time I spent hanging out in motorcycle shops drooling over things I wanted but couldn’t have back in the day.    Triumphs, Harleys, Hondas, and all the rest.   We’re glad you made your dreams come true, and we know you’re going to love your new CSC-150 (I sure do love mine).

Ride safe and send us a photo or three when you get your new bike!

Another day…another secret mission, and this one is cold!

It was 82 degrees at my home in So Cal yesterday, and we had a dandy St. Patrick’s corned beef and cabbage dinner.   That grand meal (along with a bit of Killian Red) really hit the spot.   Then I was up at 2:00 this morning to make an 0:Dark:30 flight out of LAX.   A few hours and a couple of planes later I arrived at my destination: Fort St. John, right on the Alaskan Highway, up in northern British Columbia.

It’s -1 degree here, and it’s snowing.   Folks, it’s cold!  This is the view from my hotel room…

That photo above is actually a color photo.   It’s just bleak out there.  Seems like we’ve included a lot of black-and-white photos on the blog lately, mostly because of the trove of original Mustang pictures in Steve’s new collection (like Willie Nelson and Nancy Rae).   And by the way, those two photos of Willie and Nancy Rae are now popping up all over the Internet (lots of industry folks and gearheads read this blog).   My favorite motorcycle magazine is actually going to run the Willie photo in its next issue!

So, back to Fort St. John.   This place has an interesting history, involving moving the town back and forth on different sides of the Peace River over the last 200+ years, a massacre in 1823, and lots of other cool stuff.  Here’s a view of Fort St. John from the early 1900s….

Like I said above, cool stuff (and I mean that literally…it’s the middle of the afternoon here, and it sure isn’t going to get warmer when the sun goes down).

I need to think warm thoughts…like when we did that Baja run down to Cabo on the CSC-150 motorcycles and struggled for over a week with the extreme heat.   I could sure use some of that right now!

Speaking of which, here’s a video from that trip by my good buddy Primo John.   Folks, on that adventure the heat was oppressive!   I feel warmer just thinking about it!

Later, folks.  Ride safe.   Stay warm.

In going through the treasure trove of photos that arrived with Steve’s Mustang collection, I found another one that just jumped out at me…

That beautiful young lady on the Mustang (identified in the photo as Mustang Sally) is actually Nancy Rae Purvis.    Her name wasn’t anywhere on the photo, but that attractive young lady was obviously Miss Florida in 1959 and that tickled my curiosity.

With only that and nothing else to go on, I plugged “‘Miss Florida 1959” into Google, and what do you know!   Check these photos out!

That’s Nancy Rae and friends on Daytona Beach.   Take a good look…she’s the one near the driver on  the opposite side of the Vette!   1959, no less!   Wow….the original C1 Corvette body style on Daytona Beach (remember the TV show, Route 66?) and Nancy Rae Purvis!

And here’s the article that cinched it for me…and you can see, it’s really Nancy Rae!

I tried reaching Nancy Rae by looking for phone numbers on Google, and I bothered more than a few ladies in their 80s with phone calls…but no luck.   If we ever do find her, we might just offer her a modeling gig on a CSC motorcycle.    She sure makes that Mustang look good…don’t you think?

Next week I’m on off on another secret mission (well north of the border this time where it gets real cold).    I’ll keep you posted with dispatches from the land of the frozen chosen.

Ride safe, my friends.

Neither rain nor snow nor….well, if you work for the Post Office you know the rest.   Evidently our good buddy Duane and his custom P-51 follow the same credo, as evidenced by this note I just received from him….

Joe:

Route 39 (Azusa Canyon) is clear all the way up to the Crystal Lake Cafe and Trading Post (elevation 5200 ft.) with very slight sanding (dirt) covering the road after the recent rains.

The weather was clear and cool (50-ish) with snow piled around the edge of the parking lot.  The hot chocolate sure tasted good after a cool ride.

Oh, what a ride!

Duane

Hey, that’s really cool, Duane!  Thanks for the photos and the ride report!

I need to get out on the Baja Blaster….the weather finally broke this week (we’ve had a hellacious amount of rain, folks), and I opted to head over to the rifle range with my .458 Win Mag this morning instead of riding.   It’s a tough call, but today the elephant rifle won the toss…you know, it’s open season on elephants year round in California!    You’ve inspired me, though….tomorrow, for sure, I’m going to get my knees in the breeze!

Thanks again, Duane…we really appreciate the input and especially your great photos!

The Colt was the first Mustang…with a two-stroke Villiers engine and tiny 10-inch wheels.   Mustang went to the 322cc four-stroke engine after building the first year or so of Colts because Villiers cut off the engine supply.   Just as well, I guess…the bigger engine mandated a bigger frame and wheels, and it became the Mustang we all know (and the one from which the current CSC line took its design cues).

But, back to the original Colt.   This photo was in the collection that Steve picked up with all of his new Mustangs…

I asked Jimbo about it and he thinks it might have been taken in Eagle Rock (that’s a town near Glendale, where the Mustangs were originally manufactured).   It was right at the beginning of the Mustang era….note the date on the photo!

If you want to see what these bikes looked like when they were new, here’s Steve’s fully restored Colt…this one was in the Mustang collection CSC recently acquired…

It’s a beauty.   That little bike looks almost like a jewel to me.   It is a visually arresting motorcycle.

We did a black CSC 150 a year or two ago with yellow wheels, and a red one, too…as shown here in this photo with Steve’s ’54 Pony…

Yellow wheels are a classic early Mustang touch.   That color really works on a CSC motorcycle, too!    It might be time to do another yellow-wheeled CSC…perhaps a gloss black one with black forks,  handlebars, and headlight nacelle (and a silver engine) to match the ’47 Colt in the photos above.   The new CSC Mustang collection has a lot of beautiful bikes, and you can bet many of their color combos will find their way into the CSC production line!

More to come, boys and girls…

And speaking of Corvettes, you may remember our good buddy Bill and his Bobber from the last company ride…

Well, it seems Bill suffers from the same fascination with Vettes as I do, except he took it a whole lot further.   Check out the custom rack and tow vehicle Bill uses to haul his Bobber around….

I like it, and if you’re interested, in another blog or three I might even give you the details on it!

Ride safe, my friends!

The photos just don’t do these cars justice…I haven’t seen a photo yet of the new Corvette (or the Z06, due in 2015) that lights my fire.   But when I saw a new Corvette in person, WOW!!!

Interestingly, the literature out on the Internet about the 2015 Z06 mentions an available Z07 package…I can only guess at what that will add to this 625+ hp car.   Mine is a 2004 Z06 with “only” 405 hp, and it’s more that a handful when you put your foot in it…

I know I’ve posted about the new Z06 before, but more information is coming out on it.   It is going to have a powertrain very similar to the ZR1 Vette, and we caught a photo of that car for you on the blog a couple of years ago…

That ZR1 was quite a car.   Here’s something else I posted way back, which is the ZR1 hotfooting it around the Nurburgring race track…

All cool stuff….they tell me the new 2015 Z06 is going to be right around $100K, which effectively means I’ll never own one.  Still, it would be nice…and I sure do love Corvettes.

That’s it for now, folks.  More photos of CSC motorcycles and vintage Mustangs are on the way!

Folks, I can’t make this stuff up…

Steve’s new collection of vintage Mustangs includes a lot of really cool stuff, not the least of which is a great collection of photos.   When I saw that one above, I knew two things right away:  I had to share it with you on the blog, and if anyone knew who that rider is, it would be our very own Jimbo!

So, I sent a quick note to Jimbo, and he came through!

Joe:

Yes!  His name is Willie Nelson.  He worked on the Mustang assembly department and did some light racing for Mustang.  He left just while I was still building engines.

Jimbo

How about that, folks!   Jim actually knew the guy in that photo, and his name was Willie Nelson…or should we call him Wheelie Nelson?

Thanks, Jimbo!

My buddy Steve G posted this photo of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (March 4, 1932 – April 4, 2001) on Facebook a short while ago.   Roth would have been 83 today.   He sure had an impact on the custom car and motorcycle scene.

That photo really caught my eye, because I was a kid living in New Jersey when Roth first built the car above.   He called it the “Beatnik Bandit,” and it sure had an impact.   I built a Revell model of that car, and it sure was cool.  I remember Revell actually had decals in that kit to allow duplicating the Bandit’s custom colors, and the body was molded in white plastic (so you didn’t have to paint it).

Cool and heady stuff for a kid back in those days.

RIP, Big Daddy!