Some U boat fotos

This has to be late war, u boats started looking modern, too late to make a difference in the coming collapse,
Heres an odd insignia, the iron cross, no idea which flotille this belonged to, no 88 guns on deck or front cable breaker,
Launch day, thats really Donitz signature,& Erich Topp,my guess postwar signed, some 1500 uboats were produced some 5 are left IF i'm correct..
Could this be Gibralter? see the mountain in the background? my guess the Mediterranean,,,,,,comments?
Far out at sea, safe enough to run their flag,
Whats that a British flag?? on a captured German uboat? note the u1009 hanging plaque, this deserves research,If you like uboats check out this site http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/u534.html
When i lived in Sweden this was found farther North of where i lived in the Kattegat straits.

1936 Mercedes Benz in the Netherlands

This foto is of my grandmother Frederike Doornbos ,my father,his brothers, maybe my aunt too, in a 1936 Benz, truthfully i have never been able to ID the year, those are scratches,lines in the foto. My father told me that during the war the thieving germans confiscated or stole the family car, later somehow after the war, the vehicle was sold to a dutch citizen ,after the germans retreated or were ran off w their tails between their legs. my father was really an incredible guy, Market Garden, Arnhem, my dad was there, my father once told me a story on how when he was a little boy, wehrmacht soldiers in a kubelwagon wanted to know where a certain location was & they just forced him to travel there because they couldnt find it & just left him there to find his way home, when wehrmacht officers came to my grandmothers house to take it as their headquarters , she simply told them , house has no central heating , & they left to sieze someone elses home. once dad told me his family ate tulip bulbs during the war yrs, i can never look at tulips the same way now.

Easyrider revisited, 1936-37 Chief Chopper

there still out there, well at least till i find them.....I bought this to get to the stock original powerplant, these are really tough to find . has a HD front end & a 5 gallon buckets worth of bondo, but its all Indian Chief......heres a foto of what it probably looked like when it left Springfield , ?Sure is a great old bike, i was going to sell off the chasis , but now I'm thinking of loading a later Chief powerplant in it & putting Chief tanks back on it,,,,,,,we'll see....

Eastern Front German WW2 Bmws R12 R35

this foto looks like probably the Ukraine , the bike is probably a early bmw r2 or early r35, note the "Indian" like leaf spring front end. smiling fellows, before their demise in the east.
This looks to be a Zundapp, there not deer hunting,one had to have a reliable machine under these circumstances.




Well , heres my 1941 R12 & 1949 R35....The R12 has panzer grey underneath the Afrika Korps Tan & Green........this is probably one of the last most original ww2 German R12s left on earth,My friend i bought it from told me as the Germans retreated & were being wiped out , it was abandoned in a German bunker in a farmers field, in Latvia..He thinks it was probably Waffen SS & good chance of being from the notorious ss division Totenkopf....the R35 is a post war bike but still a true BMW & not an EMW , Eisenach motor works, in the former east germany. Both need plenty of service , but will ride again soon......sep 25/2006 i drove the r35 down the street & back, oil leak & weak engine, needs rebuild..... So finnally Boretech in Ohio finished the cylinders, new valves, pistons etc some $1800 for that, theres no one in the USA i could trust w this kind of work, Vech the BMW god recomended them...So now to install, set the timing to the rebuilt mag/dynamo. & not get pissed off..........

German Uboat u53 at Newport Rhode Island oct 1915

i collect Uboat postcards ww1 & ww2, heres a unusual foto i bought, if i'm reading the records correctly from uboat.net , u53 surrendered after sinking 90 ships, in dec 1918 , scrapped out in Swansea, there were 6 of this Mittel-U class made in Kiel by Germaniawerft, this was A Friedrich Krupp ship building facility, click on the foto, its amazing, right off the east coast, who took the foto?another uboat? perhaps ,came from a east coast estate, could it have been sent by a uboat crew member to his American relative on the east coast? who knows. I have quite a few postcards i'll post, mostly ww1. These sailors were some tough bastards, their boats were very primitive .no pleasure cruise here....

Old Motorcycle fotos,

Henderson four? 1913 HD twin. i had a 1913 twin engine ,got ripped off in a deal & it went to a museum in Sturgis, really regret ever selling that engine, no footboards till 1914

1911 belt drive.... great foto showing the details.i once had a 1911-12 single belt drive frame. never imagined i'd build a early single. another regret!

looks like a 1919-23 J series, higher forks,rounded tanks vs the 1915 & earlier flat tanks.wonder where this bike is now?

I think this is 1911,......1910 & earlier, the front downtube was bent inward , not straight, its a leather belt drive too,Someone once told me HD outlasted the other bike builders because it was a fanily business.....their names were on the gas tanks....excellent point.

Heres some great old bike fotos, if you know the old iron you'll be able to id the yr of each. I'll add more as i find them......technology sure has changed.

Origins of my fascination w motorcycles, cars

My fascination w all things Iron and mechancal has to be with go-carts and tricycles. i wish i still had that #8 go car, in California we lived on steep hills , a few kids got killed riding theres down some super steep hills,& others busting their skulls open like pumpkins, i think i'm about 15-16 yrs old w this 1969 xlch sporster chopper , clutch cover was broken so you had to shift to neutral quick to stop,magneto kick start, this was my 2nd bike, this was when having choppers made folks think you were just motorcycle bums or worse, now its trendy to own choppers, turns like your driving a semi, the other chopper was a 1942 HD 45 , someone carved up into a chopper. I had bought the '69 xlch iron head from some useless bum w "chico" tatooed on his arm. i think i paid $800 in New Mexico, just a historic note ..1969 was the last year of "original" HD bikes before AMF ..A Mutha F ..well you know the rest.theres just some magic riding old motorcycles , i hadnt seen Easyrider until yrs later, that movie did more damage to antique bikes than anyone could ever imagine, Riding motorcycles has always been cheap therapy after dealing w lifes assholes.
tricycles to choppers to chiefs , knuckles, scouts, fours...
takes more than going down to your local Blockbuster and renting EasyRider to be a rebel.

Mein Treuen Koko ,my beloved Airedale Terrier 1991-2006

Koko was my very best friend, she was a real free spirit,she loved the wind in her face , riding in sidecars or my Alfa Romeo, she loved her companion dog Buddy, they were devoted to each other . she loved snow, mountain bike riding, these are just a few of my favorite fotos.When her health started to decline, In a supreme act of loyalty & devotion , she died in my arms. i'll never ever forget her.

1930 Indian FOUR motorcycle

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heres my 1930 Indian Four , i have gathered some missing items like carb,chainguard, toolbox, xtra magneto, i still need a du-5 generator & bracket ,dash etc, i feel bad its not done yet, i'm just going to rebuild the powerplant & leave the original paint as is. i'll post the previous owners name, Al Shirer ,who was a Indian dealer in Allentown PA, who believe it or not had some +470 Indians etc, i'll find that foto & post it,
The foto was in a old motorcycle magazine called Motorcycle Collector , i'm guessing it was in the 1980s. If anyone has a copy of Motorcycle Collector w an article on Al Shirer and his world of motorcycles , please write me or comment, love to post that foto of the 100s of motorcycles tossed in this massive pile...
Indian at some point bought out ACE ,is that right? Ace fours are the precursor to the early Indian Fours, its mine now.Terry Krumm in Austin Texas is rebuilding the engine, you won't find a finer engine builder.
Progress is really slow turned out the engine had every years worth of wrong parts thrown in,
should be a runner this year.Alot of mechanics are just scared of Fours, one must do whats called an offsett line bore,