Panther tank ,Porsches Panzer

knocked out Panther in front of Koln cathedral.

Ferdinand Porsche designed the Panther, strong point was the wide tracks copied from the superior Russian T34, they just couldnt copy the reliability of the T34, Panthers broke down regularly & were easy to disable w grenades dropped in the exhaust ports, good Porsche stuck w Porsche cars.......especially 356.

I collect militaria, heres a group of Panther tank tracks, these weigh about 65-75lbs each, next to it is a SS gas can, the SS had all their supplies marked accordingly,w runes,

Panzer factory, probably Tigers or pzk IV not Panthers by looking at the wheels.

i'll add more fotos as i find them. I dont find a problem collecting militaria, as long as you remember the brave decent souls who died to preserve some form of freedom. Understand the intense suffering all around, there is no glory in war , only sadness. Tyrany starts out in childhood w the schoolyard bully. At least I got to beat up the school yard bully once.

Bismarck in Bergen Norway 20/5/1941

great old fotocard of the Bismarck in Bergen, its twin was the Tirpitz,

Indian Scouts & HD 45s

Heres another Terry Krumm masterpiece, i cant believe i sold this 1928 101.. what an idiot. Z metal racing flywheels for a faster engine.this red frame was the blue frame below.

Heres the start of my 1915 HD a partial frame & a engine & tanks, quick on the phone w a committment to buy & it was mine, no bullshit answering machines,came out of Springfield Massachusetts,,,Indian country. I never got a Indiian out of Springfield surprisingly..

101 scout w 1940 barrels & heads a common modification of racers in the 1930s & 1940s, this was a loud & very fast machine, lightweight chasis w plenty of power, everything bolted up nicely. Indians were well machined. I ran a mid 1940s Chief magneto, 1 -2 kicks to start tops..

The 1940 sport scout barrels on a 101 engine fit well in a 101 chasis...I'll definately build another...

I started building a 1916 but switched to a 1915, 1916 was the first year for a kick start trans vs the peddle thru trans of 1915. 1915 & 1916 were actually pretty different bikes but w the same engines, the script of HD was raised letters, by mid 1916 the letters were embedded or not raised.

1912 belt drive,

1913 twin tank w visible script , they really were not silent grey fellows as most were ugly olive green for ww1, the earliest bikes were grey,

maybe my 1913 or 1914 twin engine in the foreground.

1913 chain drive twin, damn rare, note no footboards till 1914.

heres a 1907 HD, at a mobile HD museum,note the curved front down tube,by 1911 they are straight, historically this would be considered a motorbike vs motorcycle, but thats just nomenclature.

Heres a Spacke , early American bike , this & the 1913-14 HD single below came out of Uvalde Texas, . i used to run wanted ads & the other folks who ran wanted ads either were too busy to answer their phones or never returned calls so i got em.......

just found out in a desert field in Texas,

heres a 1914 HD twin frame, & another 1914 HD twin chasis i had got out of Cortez Colorado, amazing find, sitting in some scrap pile of metal.....

1928 era 101 scout, 45 ci, this was a wall of death carnival bike i pulled out of northern Florida, cleaned it up, readjusted the mag & came right back to life w plumes of black smoke.....the frame had been modified, amazingly fun bike, best Indian ever made, i had maybe 12 101s, one i built w 1940s sport scout barrels & heads, very loud & very fast..

1940 Sport Scout, great fun.the skirted fenders were not interchangeable w Chiefs, Scouts looked like smaller Chiefs,elegant lines, Indians designers were simply brilliant,timeless good looks.

Heres 2 Hd 45s i brought back from the dead, i probably had 15 45s oover the yrs, great reliable iron ,easiest to restore, HD built some 80,000 45s so parts are abundant but they are slow heavy bikes.

1940 Indian Sport Scout, 1 yr only rear fender & rear frame, Fun & quick. i also had a 1942 last year sport scout w plunger frame & shocks.

1942 Indian 741 30.50 cubic incher, fun trail bike, great for around town but maybe 500-600cc, so pretty small, this was the Army contracted Indian for ww2. very abundant ,cheap & very easy to restore & maintain

this 741 came out of the Carolinas, just like an Indian , throw some gas in it & a fresh battery , plumes of black smoke & there it goes back to life, very reliable.

Koko & Buddy , me & some great friends, the motorcycle King from New Jersey came out to inspect my fleet. 1969FLH "lovechild" & my 1915 HD

My beloved Koko, & bastard sport scout, built by Terry Krumm, worlds finest Indian builder, bike chasis came out of Oklahoma , engine? cant remember where i got that one, the chasis was a 1934 w a 1940-42 sport scout engine, fast & fun.Indians have a great range of interchangeable parts. I'll add more bike pictures as i find them

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.