A 1939 Lindbergh Travel Trailer

A 1939 Lindbergh Travel Trailer, designed in San Carlos, California, by an engineer of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. This trailer was custom-built for famous aviator Charles Lindbergh, hence its name. Skinned in aluminum to reduce weight and enhance appearance, the trailer boasts two axles, one at each end. The design gave the trailer a great deal of stability when parked for overnight stops and did not require that the tongue be supported on jacks when unhitched from the tow vehicle. Exterior Color: Aluminum, Interior Color: Oak.





Bonhams, Quail Lodge Auction, 14 Aug 2014 | Carmel, 14 August

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MOTO GUZZI AMBASSADOR BY BCR

By Wesley Reyneke | Rather Be Riding

Anyone who’s considered building a traditional café-racer has probably stumbled upon Benjie Flipprboi’s site at some point. As Benjie’s Café Racers, he produces a wide array of good looking bolt-on parts—and he builds pretty desirable bespoke motorcycles to boot.

This 1969 Moto Guzzi Ambassador—dubbed “Urban Tractor”—is BCR’s latest project. Benjie cites a fascination with dual-sport bikes as inspiration. “We envisioned a motorcycle that you can ride on the street in style, one that you can ride through rough roads with and most of all, one you can just have fun with. We wanted an urban commuter and a weekend back roads adventure bike.”

The Ambassador might not be the most popular choice as custom Guzzis go, but Benjie was specifically after something unusual—yet simple and tough. A couple of weeks of trawling online classifieds eventually produced this ’69-model on Craigslist, and the call was made. “I know these loop frame Moto Guzzis are heavy and are set up more as cruiser police-touring bikes, but we wanted a challenge—we wanted to build something different.”

Benjie had his work cut out for him though—the Ambassador had undergone an incomplete rat-rod style conversion, complete with solo seat and tons of flat black rattlecan paint. Even worse, the motor was knocking and blowing white smoke.

As soon as the Guzzi was in the BCR shop, it was stripped down to its bare essentials to begin planning and mocking up new parts. The first step was the fuel tank: “Though we like how the stock Ambassador gas tank looks, it was just too big for what we had in mind. And for us, it wouldn’t be a custom bike if it had a stock gas tank.”

A new tank was made from scratch out of aluminum—narrow, long and with knee indents and a Monza cap. BCR angled the bottom edges of the tank to match the Guzzi’s transverse-V heads, and set it up to work with the stock petcocks and mounting tabs. The tank was finished in bare aluminum for a tough, low-maintenance feel, with black scallops and gold outlines.

Moving to the front, new fork covers were fabricated, along with a custom headlight shroud to fill in the gap between the triple trees. It houses a 5” headlight with a one-off stainless steel headlight grill. Up top is the original Ambassador speedo casing, powder-coated matte black to match the rest of the build.

To keep things lightweight, fiberglass fenders were made up. The front is mounted high for “that enduro look”, via stainless steel rods, and the handlebars are re-purposed Honda motocross units that were lying around in the shop.

BCR shaped a new seat in the “banana style of the ’70s”, using fiberglass again for the seat pan and wrapping it in high-density foam and cowhide. It was designed to transition smoothly with the fuel tank at the front, and to attach to the frame using existing tabs. Behind it is a hand-crafted luggage rack and tail light housing.

“We usually hide the electrical components when we build a project bike,” says Benjie, “but on this bike, we wanted to expose everything.” The side covers were ditched, and the massive battery mounted in a new aluminum box, secured by a leather strap. The original 45-year-old Magneti Marelli voltage regulator was moved to the rear fender, and the stock toolbox painted jet black to match the frame.

The Ambassador’s engine was so bad, that a replacement was considered—but the bike had matching engine and frame numbers, so BCR decided to work with what they had. An extensive tear down and rebuild was undertaken, including new pistons and cylinders from Gilardoni. The heads and oil pump had to be rebuilt, and re-installed with new clutch plates, gaskets and seals, and bigger bearings. BCR also ditched the stock, grimy Dell’Orto carbs for a set of 34mm flatslide items.

Since Moto Guzzi designed the Ambassador as a cruiser, the stock exhaust and pegs are rather low-slung. Knowing that this would be a problem on dirt roads, everything was raised by 5”, and a new stainless steel exhaust system fabricated. Finishing touches included heat shields and a skid plate to protect the front of the engine from debris.

BCR’s “Urban Tractor” certainly ticks all the right boxes as a quirky, do-anything vintage machine. “We had fun building this bike,” says Benjie. “It’s simple, fun to ride, and it’s something different.”

And if that’s not enough, Benjie has some great upgrades planned—including a rack for a skateboard or longboard, and a leather saddlebag. Sounds good to me.

Check out the BCR website and Facebook page. Photos courtesy ofblacksheepmanila.com and 13luckymonkey.com.

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Moto GP ;Márquez enchaîne avec une dixième victoire consécutive à Indianapolis / IMS success for Marquez as he wins tenth successive race

Vainqueur du Grand Prix Red Bull d’Indianapolis, Marc Márquez est le premier pilote à remporter les dix premières manches d’une saison de la catégorie reine depuis l’illustre Giacomo Agostini et demeure invaincu cette année. A ses côtés sur le podium, Jorge Lorenzo et Valentino Rossi n’ont pas longtemps pu tenir le rythme effréné du Champion du Monde en titre.

Avant lui, seul Giacomo Agostini avait réussi l’exploit de remporter les dix premières manches d’une saison de la catégorie reine, en 1968, 1969 et 1970. Au Grand Prix Red Bull d’Indianapolis, Marc Márquez (Repsol Honda) s’est de nouveau montré bien supérieur à ses concurrents et s’imposait une fois de plus sur le sol américain, où la victoire ne lui a jamais échappé en MotoGP™. Le jeune Espagnol est d’autre part le premier pilote à aligner dix victoires successives depuis Mick Doohan en 1997.

En pole position, le Champion du Monde en titre n’a pas particulièrement réussi son départ et a immédiatement été devancé par Andrea Doviziso (Ducati) et Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP), qui allaient de disputer la première place sur les premiers tours. 

Egalement passé par Andrea Iannone (Pramac Racing) et Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) au départ, Márquez a opté pour la prudence sur les premiers tours et s’est contenté de suivre jusqu’à ce qu’un contact entre Dovizioso et Rossi dans le sixième tour ne lui permette de passer en première position, avant de commettre une petite erreur au profit du nonuple Champion du Monde.

Rossi a alors résisté en tête jusqu’à céder face à Márquez dans un dixième tour qui allait être le tournant de la course puisque le numéro 93 s’est ensuite échappé en solitaire, ne laissant aucune chance à Lorenzo et Rossi, passé par son coéquipier à la mi-course.

Brillant en début d’épreuve, Dovizioso n'a pas pu maintenir sa cadence et a fini septième, derrière Pedrosa et les deux pilotes de Monster Yamaha Tech3, Pol Espargaró et Bradley Smith. Vingt secondes derrière l’Italien, son coéquipier Cal Crutchlow (Ducati) a pris la huitième place, devant Scott Redding (GO&FUN Honda Gresini) et Hiroshi Aoyama (Drive M7 Aspar), premiers pilotes de la catégorie Open suite à l’abandon d’Aleix Espargaró (NGM Forward Racing), dont la moto était trop endommagée après sa collision avec Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda MotoGP), lui aussi contraint au forfait.

Mike di Meglio (Avintia Blusens) a pour sa part réalisé sa meilleure performance de la saison pour décrocher ses premiers points depuis son arrivée en MotoGP™. Le Français est petit à petit monté en puissance pour aller chercher Colin Edwards (NGM Forward Racing) puis Karel Abraham (Cardion AB Motoracing) et a fini douzième, seulement 0.216s derrière le Tchèque.

Egalement dans le Top 15, Michael Laverty (PBM) et son coéquipier Broc Parkes étaient les seuls autres pilotes à l’arrivée. 

Álvaro Bautista (GO&FUN Honda Gresin) et Yonny Hernández (Energy T.I. Pramac Racing) ont abandonné dès le premier tour après s’être percutés dans le deuxième virage. Héctor Barberá (Avintia Blusens), Danilo Petrucci (Octo IodaRacing Team) et Andrea Iannone (Pramac Racing) ont eux aussi abandonné, sur problèmes techniques, tandis que Leon Camier, qui faisait sa première course en MotoGP™ en tant que remplaçant de Nicky Hayden (Drive M7 Aspar), a dû passer par les stands à deux reprises et n’a pas pu rallier l’arrivée.

Avec cette dixième victoire, Márquez aura 89 points d’avance sur Pedrosa au moment de reprendre la piste la semaine prochaine à Brno pour le Grand Prix bwin de République Tchèque.

Cliquez ici pour accéder aux résultats.

MotoGP™ World Champion Marc Marquez won his tenth consecutive race on Sunday at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, with Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi joining him on the podium.

The victory saw Repsol Honda’s Marquez become the first rider since Mick Doohan in 1997 to win ten successive premier class races. It was also the 100^th win for a Spanish rider in the premier class and the 500^th win for Spain across all categories.

On Lap 11 of the first MotoGP contest at the modified Indianapolis track, Marquez took advantage as Lorenzo joined the battle with Rossi for the lead, the World Champion squeezing through to take over at the front and not looking back - eventually finishing just under two seconds clear at the front.

Lorenzo got the better of his teammate Rossi for second, after the Italian had held the lead in the early stages fending off a challenge from Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team), who started well but faded to seventh. In finishing third Rossi becomes the first rider to score 4,000 premier class points.

Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) finished fourth as he came through from eighth on the grid, gambling on a harder front tyre.

Pol Espargaro (Monster Yamaha Tech3) rode well to finish fifth with his teammate Bradley Smith crossing the line sixth after suffering a heavy crash on Saturday in which he aggravated an old finger injury.

Cal Crutchlow (Ducati Team) was 20 seconds behind his seventh placed teammate Dovizioso in eighth, with Scott Redding (GO&FUN Honda Gresini) just behind Crutchlow at the finish in ninth. Hiroshi Aoyama (Drive M7 Aspar) completed the top ten but there was bad luck for his substitute colleague Leon Camier who retired with six laps to go.

There were also retirements for Hector Barbera (Avintia Racing) and Danilo Petrucci (IodaRacing Project) due to technical issues. In addition, at Turn 4 of lap one Alvaro Bautista (GO&FUN Honda Gresini) crashed out with Yonny Hernandez (Energy T.I. Pramac Racing).

On lap 13 Stefan Bradl (LCR Honda MotoGP) and Aleix Espargaro (NGM Forward Racing) clashed as Bradl crashed out and Espargaro’s bike was badly damaged forcing him to pull off track, having initially tried to continue.

Andrea Iannone (Pramac Racing) stopped with a problem on lap 17, having been well placed in eighth.

For full MotoGP race results from Indianapolis click here.