Jesse James - West Coast Choppers

Appearing in Motorcycle Mania, Motorcycle Mania 2, and Monster Garage

On the surface, with his collection of skulls, pet sharks, pit bulls and tattoos, Jesse James is the consummate motorcycle outlaw. Some of this comes naturally — after all, his great-great-grandfather was the famous outlaw's cousin. But this image is only a small part of Jesse James' persona: There's also his passion as an artisan, his love for his children and his success at custom-building bikes.

Originally from Long Beach, Calif., Jesse James from West Coast Choppers and also Monster Garage grew up around his father's antiques business. His dad's small shop was quartered in a shared warehouse with a large aftermarket parts manufacturer for Harley-Davidsons and sport bikes. One of Jesse's earliest recollections is playing around those magnificent, gleaming two-wheeled speed machines. Such early experiences fueled the visions of his future.

Jesse got his first minibike at 7, and with that thrill his passion for choppers knew no boundaries. He made his first crude motorcycle exhaust system during his freshman year of high school in his mother's garage. His perfectionism, however, prevented him from keeping it around; he threw it away before anyone saw it.

Jesse excelled in sports, playing linebacker for his high-school football team. He went on to play football at the University of California at Riverside, barely making ends meet as a student athlete. Jesse even remembers counting quarters to pay his $175 tuition bill. A knee injury kept him from continuing his athletic career.

With sports out of the picture as a career, Jesse then trained to become a professional bodyguard. He worked for many A-list bands, including Soundgarden, Danzig and Slayer, and traveled the globe on tour with them. During this time he met his former wife, with whom he shares two children, a 5-year-old son, Jesse Jr., and a 7-year-old daughter, Chandler. After an injury sustained at a show, Jesse decided to leave the bodyguard business to pursue something that he has loved from childhood: motorcycles. He began working for the famous hot-rod builder Boyd Coddington and learned everything he could. Then Jesse set out on his own.

Jesse began West Coast Choppers in 1992 in a corner of a friend's garage. He started with no loan and no partners, and built it from the ground up, in the painstaking way Jesse builds his bikes. Now he has over 50 employees — his 18,000-square-foot facility in Long Beach, Calif., is being quickly outgrown — and sells his bikes for $60,000 to $150,000 each to a clientele that includes celebrities such as Shaquille O'Neal, Kid Rock and model Tyson Beckford. Jesse has now done over 40 episodes of Monster Garage for the Discovery Channel. Harley Davidsons built by himself and Billy Lane.

Jesse James sometimes can't believe that he gets paid so well to do what he loves. Of course, Jesse's other great loves are spending time with his children and riding his bike with the gleaming chrome, day-glo metal-flake paint and 140-horsepower engine.

So if you see him pull up next to you, be not afraid. Jesse James may ride again, but it's not what you might expect — this man just loves his life

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Orange County Choppers

Established as a business in 1999, the shop grew out of Orange County Ironworks, a steel fabrication enterprise founded nearly 30 years ago by custom-chopper builder and rider Paul Teutul Sr. OCC jumped on the custom-bike scene at Daytona Biketoberfest 1999 with "True Blue," a classic chopper built in the basement of Paul Sr.'s house.
Other signature bikes soon followed, including the Spider Bike, purchased by musician Wyclef Jean of the Fugees, and the Jet Bike. Built to honor U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, the Jet Bike was featured in the original American Chopper that aired on Discovery Channel in September 2002.

Today, Orange County Choppers has garnered worldwide praise and recognition for their custom motorcycles. In 2002, for example, OCC was recognized by American Iron as one of the world's top 12 builders; likewise, OCC will be among 19 other top builders profiled in the forthcoming book Haute Motor: The Art of the Chopper (November 2003). OCC bikes have also been featured on numerous magazine covers including American Iron, Freeway (France), Norsk Biker Journal (Norway) and Street Chopper. And the Spider Bike was one of three bikes chosen in the world-class competition at the Rats Hole Custom Show in Daytona, Fla., to receive an "all expenses paid" trip to Germany, the site of one of the biggest auto/bike shows in the world.

It's a garage that's come far in only four short years. Just wait to see what comes next.

Orange County Choppers at a Glance:

Founder: Paul Teutul Sr.
Chief Designer/Fabricator: Paul Teutul Jr.
Established: 1999
Location: Rock Tavern, N.Y.
Employees: 20
Bikes Produced Annually: 150

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Hats off to Von Dutch

Booth Moore
Los Angeles Times

When Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie tried working as Arkansas milkmaids in an episode of their reality show "The Simple Life," things ended badly, with the pair soaked in spilled milk. But their orange camouflage Von Dutch truckers' caps made an impression. Within hours, the hats were selling on ebay for three times their retail value

The Von Dutch brand, named for a seminal L.A. car customizer, has hit critical mass.

The craze started 10 months ago, after Justin Timberlake wore a Von Dutch hat to Grammy night parties. Fred Durst, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears and other Hollywood types followed suit, and pretty soon the truckers' hat had become a kind of anti-status status symbol. Or, at prices that go from $42 to $125, maybe a "faux" anti-status symbol.

Von Dutch Originals, founded in 1999, is a purveyor of greaser-chic jeans, T-shirts and motorcycle jackets. But it's the wide-billed, foam-front truckers' hat -- borrowed not from the urban street but from the auto and tractor parts dealerships of rural America -- that has made Von Dutch a lust-worthy name.

While coastal-dwelling trendsetters have been wearing the loopy script logo for months, it seems to be infiltrating states where truckers' hats are actually worn by truckers.

"We're watching the brand hit mainstream," said Marshal Cohen, a fashion and retail analyst for the market research firm NPD Group. Celebrity paparazzi shots are published so many times that "until the next trend," he said, "Von Dutch will stay in consumers' minds."

The hats are made in a variety of fabrics, including terrycloth, velvet, leather, denim and faux Dalmatian fur. Each design is limited to a run of 1,000, which helps fuel demand (the Beanie Baby factor). On ebay last year, more than 20 Von Dutch hats sold for $900-plus.

But just because people are wearing the stuff doesn't mean they know a Von Dutch from a Von Trapp. "I bought a sweatshirt for my niece in Boston, so when she watches 'The Simple Life' and sees Paris Hilton wearing Von Dutch, she can feel cool," said Thomas Kostigen, 37, a writer-producer who was shopping recently at the new Von Dutch store on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, Calif. He confessed he had no inkling of who or what Von Dutch was.

He's not alone.

Von Dutch, whose real name was Kenny Howard, was a father of the 1960s "kustom car" craze. Howard, who was raised in Maywood, Calif., and died at 63 in 1992, virtually invented the freestyle pin-striping and painted flames that became the signature of the uniquely Southern California car subculture. His family nickname was "Dutch" -- given to him early on by relatives who found him "as stubborn as a Dutchman," according to a book published by the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach, Calif., in connection with its 1993 exhibit "Kustom Kulture."

As a teenager, he developed the logo that he used all his life -- a bloodshot winged eyeball, which now adorns most Von Dutch merchandise.

In the 1950s, he became well known for his custom paint jobs; people came from all over the country to have their cars and motorcycles "Dutched," according to Bob Burns, a longtime friend and collaborator who now owns a sign-painting shop in Prescott, Ariz.

According to the Laguna Art Museum book, Von Dutch earned rebel mystique by traveling in a 1954 bus equipped with a complete machine shop, supporting himself by restoring motorcycles and building strange vehicles from scratch.

Burns said that Von Dutch disappeared for part of the 1960s because his fame was so unsettling. "He never liked being the object of attention. He was into his work. . . He shied away from people and money."

Still, he did some memorable work: For the 1969 Steve McQueen movie "The Reivers," he built the memorable yellow Winton Flyer.

From 1970 to 1979, Burns said, Von Dutch parked his bus behind a Buena Park, Calif., museum called Movie World, Cars of the Stars and Planes of Fame. The museum featured customized cars and hot rods, many of them used in movies or TV, embellished by such car customizers as George Barris.

After the museum closed, Von Dutch moved his bus to a Santa Paula, Calif., warehouse, where he stayed until he died from liver disease.

In 1996, his daughters Lisa and Lorna Howard of Phoenix sold the rights to his name to Michael Cassel, an entrepreneur who wanted to open a business that would appeal to hot rod enthusiasts. A few years later, Cassel entered a partnership with Tonny Sorensen, the company's current CEO, who was initially hoping to produce a film about Von Dutch. (The partners are wrangling over control of the company.)

In 2000, the company opened its first store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. It has since opened four more -- in Beverly Hills, Chicago, Miami and Santa Monica. In May 2002, Sorensen hired designer Christian Audigier, who has worked for the youth-minded apparel companies Diesel, Bisou Bisou and American Eagle Outfitters. Audigier focused more on fashion, adding hoodies and jeans. Although the truckers' hats are the most visible of Von Dutch's products, Sorensen said the company does more sales volume in jeans, which cost $145 to $320. The company's sales have risen from $1 million in 2001 to roughly $33 million in 2003.

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