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Back to the Future 2 Police MotorcycleWell, if you've checked out some of our finished cars, then you know how this one is going to turn out. If you haven't already, we'll include a shot of the bike as it used to be. This vehicle had an unfortunate accident after an auto show in Europe. It appears to have fallen off the back of a flatbed truck on the road and smashed into three large pieces. This bike recently arrived here from LA… UNDER the General Lee !!! Several of the pieces will have to be replaced and the original paint and decals are a total write off. One of the wonderful things about this restoration is that we still have some duplicate pieces left over from the last one we restored. This one will go back together fast, keep and eye on it. UPDATE – 14 September 1999 Well, let me first try to bring you up to speed. As you can tell from the description above, we took possession of this bike, or rather pile of bike parts in February of this year. Since then we have had a great deal of other work to keep us busy and the bike parts sort of sat around in many different locations and was worked on whenever anyone had time. On one occasion, I had the front end in my garage at home and worked at re-assembling the cracked, broken and even missing pieces to that part during a summer barbecue.
This vehicle, which was once together as a whole and was last seen gliding across the screen, was now in at least three locations at once, more that 50 miles apart. If you include the cracked windshield, which was still at Ohrberg Star Cars in Los Angeles, then it would be 4 locations and 3000 miles. A weekend flight to LA returned the windshield to the East Coast. Having prepared for this trip, I brought along a large duffel bag that was capable of successfully containing the windshield yet still qualified as "carry on" luggage. It was quite amusing to see security X-ray an obviously heavy and quite full bag that appeared to carry nothing inside. After a brief explanation to airline security, we were on our way back home. While we were diligently coming up with many ideas on how this windshield, made of plexiglass and now broken into several large pieces, some of them missing, could best be re-engineered to serve as a model for a reproduction. We were fortunate enough to acquire a large assortment of original molds for a great deal of Hollywood Star Cars. Among these molds was a set from the Back to the Future production, which included the windshield mold for the Police Hoverbike. My "carry on cargo" was rendered scrap plastic. Within a few hours, we had a replacement.
While I was busy barbecuing and restoring the structural integrity of the front end, the chassis was undergoing some straightening and reconstruction. When this bike, leaped from the trailer onto the pavement, anything that was protruding out from the bike was instantly snapped off. Only those items that were also attached by wires, cables or in some cases hoses, were still anywhere near the chassis. Anything that wasn’t, was a memory. Some of the attachments, like center or kickstands or even exhaust pipes were twisted and useless, the kickstand had been snapped clean off.
Anything that could not be straightened was removed. One of the dual exhausts, with its custom shroud, was so badly crushed that it had to be removed and discarded, the other, we managed to save. The gauges were so badly damaged as to be almost unrecognizable. Once we had removed all that need be removed, it was time to start putting some necessary items back on. A trip to our nearby Kawasaki dealer, who was happy to once again be supplying parts to such a strange project, took care of that problem. After a few days, the replacement parts arrived and this moviecar was once again standing on its own. Interestingly enough, we found that Ohrberg Star Cars had opted to modify the center stand for this vehicle to make room for the custom exhaust system. Their modifications would have rendered the center stand non-functional. Only a stretch of highway in California knows for sure. We decided to modify the exhaust system instead of the new center stand as quite often, a young visitor to an exhibit will find some way to slip under the ropes and seat himself upon our cycles. A functional center stand is a priority for us. It did amuse me to once again view the original footage of the Police officers arriving on our bikes and using the side stands, knowing full well that at the time, they really didn’t have a choice.
During his free time away from the restoration of the General Lee, Joe managed to complete expert surface repairs on the bike’s front end and readied the first part for painting. It was at this moment that we decided to have this vehicle join it twin and to be added to the October 10th Autoshow lineup.
In the meantime, a tragedy struck the bikes progress. Our longtime decal supplier and vehicle lettering expert’s facility caught fire and while not a victim of the blaze, the computer system, which has housed all of our original decal designs for most of our custom cars, was literally hosed by the fire department. As you are all reading this on the Internet, you are doubtless aware of what a fire hose can do to a computer. While many experts are at this moment, sorting through the remains of the wet CPU and the soggy backup tapes, little hope remains for the recovery of our decal designs. Ironically, our decals had already been run out for the General Lee and the BTTF 2 bike and were awaiting pickup when they too were hosed by the Fire Company. At present, a new graphic designer is going over our original sketches from long ago to re-create the bike and General Lee decals. A short while ago all the parts for the hoverbike once again met at the shop. Some broken components of the custom handlebars were re-fabricated this evening and tonight this long-time pile of twisted metal began to look like a motorcycle. This evening also saw the re-alignment of the front end and the windshield. We managed to carefully go over the mechanical components of the Kawasaki and concluded that while there are a few leaks and scratches. This bike is mechanically sound and should return to operating condition quite soon.
This brings us up to date for the moment. This week will see the re-attachment of the front end and the structural repair of the rear. Hopefully, the next update will find the bike primered and ready for the multicolor paint process. It should also find us in the design room of the new decal shop, reproducing the "Hill Valley Police" logos and custom graphics. Stay tuned… FINAL UPDATE – 5 January 2001 Well, lots to tell this time. Not only has this bike been restored, survived another tragedy, but also it has been sold and is currently on display in a car museum and will most likely be moving to a new display location this month.Let's again, bring you up to date. We were able to reproduce our lost decals, strangely enough, because the new decal shop had been contacted to consult on the original decals by the now destroyed and out of business (the computer was never returned to service) decal company. When we arrived at the new supplier with the original designs, he commented: After a few minutes of searching, he produced the "Hill Valley" graphics on his computer. I myself was quite pleased. Seems a small bit of luck was with us and we were back on schedule. My most sincere thanks to the record keeping skills of our new graphics friends at Sign-a-rama.  That afternoon's rain became an evening of rain, which became a morning of rain, which became "Hurricane Floyd". Our longtime Kawasaki Dealership, it should be mentioned was Bound Brook Cycle. Bound Brook, was in turn the epicenter of damage to central New Jersey. Most of the world has seen footage from this little town and can clearly see just the top of the large yellow roof in the top center of most photos. This WAS Bound Brook Kawasaki. Had we made that appointment that afternoon, our story would have ended right here.  
 
 As we never throw anything away, we were happy to find that 5-year-old paint from the first bike was still usable. We set out to paint its twin. First up, was the front end, starting with the white, then moving on to the electric blue.   
 
 
 Wherever it may turn up, we are delighted to have restored it to glory. 
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