James Dean looks on somewhat bemused as Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo among other roles!); possibly extolling the virtues of wearing a frilly and flowery pinafore. Jim played Frank Stark, Dean's anguished character Jim's father. "You're tearing me apart!!"
Lovely Thunderbird sits waiting for a twist of the throttle. Fancy a ride up to the Observatory?
The actor Ryan Phillipe with his black Bonneville.
Taylor Kitsch aboard an ebony Bonnie too; with camera. The link?
They both star in the film 'The Bang Bang Club' about a group of photojournalists in South Africa during the demise of apartheid; a period on unrest, violence and their pursuit to stand witness to it for the world.
Kevin Carter
The savage and iconic picture that Kevin Carter took in 1994 that gained him a Pulitzer Prize; A starving Sudanese child slumped in the sun while a vulture looks on. Sadly he took his life a few months after that unable to take the horrific images he'd wintessed from famine and war zones.
The Welsh band Manic Street Preachers had a song 'Kevin Carter' from their award winning 1996 album: "Everything Must Go".
...another hit of theirs is 'Motorcycle Emptiness' a great early nineties rebel song from their debut album 'Generation Terrorists'. Inspired by SE Hinton's book 'Rumble Fish' it was made into a cult youth/counter culture film by Francis Ford Coppola starring Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillon.
Johnny Strabler taking a laid back approach to life as the Black Rebels Motorcycle Club leader in the classic biker picture The Wild One. A movie loosely based on the events of a fictiionalized hell-raising by a motorcycle gang in Hollister CA in the early Fifties. A Time magazine article spread the word about the Bad-Boy image of bikers that still lives to this day; helped with a not too bad part of Brando in the lead role.
Atop his Triumph Thunderbird 6T, this film andoubtedly promoted the popularity of Triumph motorcycles in the US when they, along with BSA, were the dominant world force of motos. A reign that would last two strong decades until the Japanese bikes came along. His white t-shirt, askew cap, black leather jacket, engineer boots and turned up jeans and surly sideburned appearance became the image of the rocker-rebel for generations.
Another action guy used to hauling around on or being seen with British Iron is Brad Pitt. Obviously at one with the cool value offered by this great marque. Here he is in the retro-life Benjamin Button.
The silver blue Thunderbird coloured Tiger with nacelle headlight is a beaut!
Trying on the McQueen mantle of two wheeled freedom.
In the satirical movie Shampoo Warren Beatty plays a womanizing hairdresser haring around Beverly Hills on his Triumph Tiger; his Mason Pearson hairbrush sticking out of his back pocket. Julie Christie & Goldie Hawn play the love, or more accurately sex, interest. Nevertheless he looks cool on the 500.
n.b. this was a pre-Princess Leia debut role for Carrie Fisher with a very Lolita-esque character.
You can keep yer Nimbus 2000! Get on yer bike and ride! This here's Tom Felton; known to folk as the sly bleach headed young Draco Malfoy. Good black & white photography with a 60's look to it: looks like 'es ready to ride down Carnaby Street.
A McQueen film from '66 was The Sand Pebbles; seeing him play a gunboat engineer, Jake Holman, parolling the Yangtse River in the twenties amidst the turmoil of a chinese revolution. He received his only Oscar nomination for this role.
Here's a great shot as the actor relaxes with co-star Richard Crenna, who played the 'boat captain. Steve atop a fresh loooking Triumph, Crenna a rickshaw.
Whether running against a stagecoach, ascending an alp, laying bricks (with a hod), or eloping to Gretna Green, it is, as they say " Easy on a Triumph!
Looking into different variations of a warm orange colour scheme for my new tank: a fiery glow to show off the bike. It has been a staple tone for the Big T for over fifty years: from the first Bonnie; the X75 special in the seventies; through the nineties Hinckley triples to the modern naked sports bikes.
Around the World across the British Empire the Triumph was considered the chosen transporation for checking in on the locals. "How's the bean crop coming on Carhurst?"
Back in '73, a Triumph becomes the basis for a seventies period cafe racer: blue and yellow, chesterfiled plush saddle, big disc brakes with alloy rims abd the typical clip-ons and rear sets. The onlookers have an obvious interest in it at least!
The fifties and sixties saw a refreshing style in the graphic arts as well as product design. Eames', Saarinen, Nelson et al. Here is a threesome of Meriden product promotion in slick and swift handed period illustration.
The first is a pair of Trophy towed by a Ford Cortina (I recall the tail-light of the Mk 1 my Pa had in the mid 70's)
Carnaby Street revellers enjoy a post Bonneville jaunt.
...and finally a Speed Twin is admired by a cool crowd.
A new (old) book from Ebay for my slowly expanding collection of motorcycle encyclopedia; this one adorned with a rosy red Speed Twin illustration. A nice survey of the worlds motos up to the late 70's. It'll be useful for determining those esoteric manufacturers from the early days of motor vehicles.
Fourth in the series so far: previously a cup of tea at the racetrack, ufo catching and supersonic jet wheel changing! Here we're escaping angry native across a precarious tree trunk bridge. All part of a movie it seems.
