Ed Roth has been gone more than three years now. That's hard to believe. His influence is as great today as it was throughout most of his life, and if you think that's limited to the custom car world, put this magazine down and take a look around. "Big Daddy's" inspiration has wedged its way into every cranny of popular culture.
Indian Larry, one of America's most well-known bike builders, created one of his greatest choppers to pay tribute to Roth. The homage was more than just one custom artist's nod to another. Indian Larry, whose Brooklyn-based shop is just across the river from Manhattan, knew Roth from the early days of both of their careers and credits Big Daddy for his success. "If it wasn't for Roth, I wouldn't have this career," he told us.
Indian Larry has been customizing two-wheelers ever since he was a kid who discovered that a bicycle could expand his territory. After motorizing a few bicycles, he built his first motorcycle, a '39 Harley knucklehead. He's been building them for 40 years now.
He was still a kid when he traveled across the country to visit Roth at his Maywood, California, shop and ask for a job. Roth told him to get some experience first and sent him over to Larry Watson, where he got some work block-sanding and shooting primer before returning to the East Coast. In the years to follow, Indian Larry got to know "Big Daddy" as a friend and was looking forward to a visit from him when he got the bad news that he had died.
Although Indian Larry made his mark building bikes instead of cars, he says Big Daddy taught him the art of customizing. "Early in my career, I always tried to do whatever Roth did. Roth was a sign painter and pinstriper; I went to school for sign painting and pinstriping. Roth was chroming everything, so I started to chrome everything. Pinstriping, the metalflake paints, the asymmetrical bodies--I just followed what he did in the beginning."
"Rat Fink," as this tribute bike is called, was built during Discovery Channel's Great Biker Build-Off competition in 2003. Under the constrictions of the TV show, the incredibly detailed chopper was put together in a 31-day thrash. The rigid frame, built by Ron Paugh at Paughco, was modified at Indian Larry's shop. A Paughco tank was added using hidden mounts. The Harley XA springer-style frontend was customized with one-of-a-kind, twisted, hand-forged legs, and the downtubes were lengthened 2 inches for greater ground clearance.
Custom Chrome provided the 88ci stroked engine, built with an S&S crankcase, ported and polished STD panheads, and dual S&S carburetors. Much of the mechanical work was done by Keino at Indian Larry's. The transmission is a Baker six-speed, and exhaust pipes are custom pieces. For a relatively small V-twin engine, it knocks out "crazy horsepower," especially for a low-weight bike. Indian Larry has had it up to 125 mph on the road.
Paul Cox built the beautiful tooled leather seat and developed an airbag suspension system underneath, to make riding a rigid-frame bike on bad road a lot more comfortable. Every bit of the amazing paint job--metalflake coats, graphics, pinstriping, lettering, everything--was done by Robert Pradke at Custom Auto Design in Connecticut, who finished the job in a week. The thrash paid off. At the end of the Great Biker Build-Off, "Rat Fink" was the winner.
Like most of the best hot rod builders, Indian Larry builds his bikes to be beautiful and to be used. "The kind of bikes I build have to be functional. I ride them and hammer them. I beat up on them. I do wheelies. I do burnouts." It's hard to picture a piece of art like this getting used that hard, but "Rat Fink" has already been ridden hundreds of miles, with more to come.
Now that he can make a living with his own bikes, Indian Larry no longer builds for clients, a luxury that lets him follow his own vision. That's where the Roth influence comes in again. "I'm interested in building in my crazy style. What I'm after is the perfect motorcycle, the perfect super-detailed, mechanical object that I can hop on and ride. It doesn't blow up. It doesn't leak oil. It starts up and performs the way it's supposed to, but still looks great.
"I approach it as an art, which is, I believe, how Roth approached it. Do your own thing. You don't have to be validated outside of yourself. Do what's in your head and forget about what anybody else is doing. That's the main thing I learned from Ed Roth. There was nobody like him. Nobody was in his realm."