Arlen Ness

Arlen Ness is a pioneer in the custom motorcycle industry. His first customs were made in the garage of his home in San Leandro, CA but by the early 1970s, he had moved to a storefront on East 14th Street. Ness was recognized for his unique painting style and for developing a line of custom motorcycle parts. His popularity grew as he built new custom bikes, displayed them on the bike show circuit, and then had the bikes featured in motorcycle magazines.

Chopper Success

After more than three decades of custom bike building and developing his business to the point that it supports a several hundred page parts catalogue, "Arlen Ness, Inc." moved to a Dublin, California facility that included a museum featuring more than 40 of his custom motorcycles. The museum displays his famous "Untouchable", the twin motor "Two Bad", the antique inspired "Ness-Tique", "Blower Bike", the Italian sports car inspired "Ferrari Bike", the '57 Chevy sports car inspired "Ness-Stalgia", the Bugatti-like "Smooth-Ness", the Discovery Channel's Biker Build-Off bike "Top Banana", and his jet powered "Mach Ness".

The Mach Ness is a motorcycle Ness built in 2005, inspired by Jay Leno’s turbine-powered bike, that incorporates a jet powered helicopter engine as its power plant. The design, concept, paint, and graphics were created by Carl Brouhardand the hand-made aluminum body work was by Bob Monroe.

Arlen has received recognition and awards including "Builder of the Year", induction into the "Motorcycle Hall of Fame" and "Lifetime Achievement Awards". His son, Cory Ness, has worked with Arlen for more than 30 years, and now runs the day to day business operations at "Arlen Ness, Inc." Cory has himself been recognized as a top custom bike builder and even defeated his father in a 2004 episode of "The Great Biker Build-Off". Carrying on the family tradition to a third generation, Cory's son, Zach, built several beautiful high end customs before finishing high school in 2006.

Ness received a patent for the "Big Shot", a method of altering the motorcycles fuel injection system, is used to personalize a motorcycle's performance.

Media

"Arlen Ness; the King of Choppers" by Michael Lichter and Arlen Ness was published in 2005. It includes photography by Michael Lichter.

References

* [http://www.arlenness.com/arlennesshistory.html Arlen Ness History]
* [http://www.arlenness.com/videoclips.html Arlen Ness Video]
* [http://search.discovery.com/search?q=arlen+ness&site=wwwTVListings&proxystylesheet=wwwMain&client=wwwMain&output=xml_no_dtd&getfields=*&filter=1 Discovery Channel]
* [http://carlbrouhard.com/cell.aspx?pgid=161 Arlens' Help]
* [http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2005/07/29/arlen-ness-the-king-of-choppers-book/ Arlen Ness Book]
* [http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/halloffame/hofbiopage.asp?id=351 Motorcycle Hall of Fame]
* [http://shop.arlenness.com/store/productdetail.asp+SID+1+Category_ID+56+Product_ID+7140 The Big Shot]

See also

* Biker Build-Off