Subject: How did you come by your Loop and why?
Author: Prusnek
Date: Nov 30, 2003, 8:12 AM
Post ID: 1715363236
Ian:
Good thread, I'll bite:
In the late '90's the divorcee that lived across the street from my
father had a bunch of bikes in her garage that she just had to get rid
of. At the time she mentioned a couple of Honda Dreams, which I thought
would be pretty interesting.
What I hauled out of there was two 160 Dreams, the '71 Ambo, a '73
Laverda SF1, a tiny fold up Benelli, a snowblower and a plow (the kind
you hook a horse up to) for $750. I think I had seen a Guzzi once
before this, and I have been riding for over 30 years.
Everything had been sitting in an unheated dirt floor garage for 15
years, the Ambo was missing the headlight and carbs, the Laverda was
crashed with bent fork tubes, no sheetmetal or rear wheel, and a locked
engine, basically a rusted hulk. Apparently the 'husband' enjoyed taking
stuff apart and misplacing the pieces. Everything that wasn't missing
was rusted and corroded.
I decided to restore the Guzzi for my wife, the good Suzanne,
joined the MGNOC and found that all the parts were easily obtained. In
the process I discovered that nobody made the tank and fendertip decal
replacements and made up some of my own, along with about 25 extras to
sell to pay for the setup. As you may know, this turned into a cottage
industry for me, and I've sold several hundred sets to Guzzi
enthusiasts, making a lot of people happy in the process, and have
expanded to providing all the decals for all loopframes due to popular
requests.
When I got the Ambo done, Suzanne drove it to the National meet
when it was in Cumberland, WV and won People's Choice, I feel, largely
because we parked it next to the beer keg and she chatted up all the
inebriates.
When I finished the Laverda, we drove both of them from here in Ohio
to Sturbridge, Mass for Laverda's 50th anniversary shindig. Neither bike
missed a beat, althought the front tire of the Ambo wore down visibly at
every rest stop; the 'bargain' tire I had put on turned out to be a soft
competition compound which was fine for putting around town, but wasn't
up to constant highway pounding.
On the way back we stopped in Springfield, Mass for a new tire, the
owner was the son of Indian factory test rider Butch Baer. He let me
take the tire off behind his shop and mounted a new one for me. Lots
of good stories, and he led us to the Indian museum, a real treat that
we would have missed without the tire episode.
Since then I restored another Ambo, a '69, and had it displayed in
the Warren, OH Packard Museum bike exhibit. You can see them at
http://myweb.core.com/photos/spajohn@raex.com/
I never did do anything with the Honda Dreams, and recently sold
them both for what I bought the whole trailer load of stuff for,
basically getting the Ambo for free, with the decal sales financing the
restoration. I'm still using the snowblower, but never hooked a horse
up to the plow...
John Prusnek