Words and Photography : Onno " Berserk " Wieringa madnessphotography . nl
Built as an homage to the year Zodiac started ( 1969 in the USA ) and the Captain America bike in Easy Rider , this chopper was built in-house in the Zodiac workshop in the Netherlands to showcase a selection of the erainformed parts it sells , and also as an homage to Indian Larry .
" He was one of the few builders down the years who was able to be 100 percent authentic to the look and feel of 1960s choppers and bobbers ," says Zodiac CEO Vincent Pels , " so say hello to ' Captain Larry ', our combo tribute to the late sixties and to Indian Larry ." Featuring a number of Indian Larry signature elements such as the dished Mustang tank and the engine with cylinder heads from different construction years , the chopper was completely built with parts from the Zodiac warehouse . " Charles , our mechanic at Zodiac , gets all the credits for building this bike ," says Vincent , " I come up with the design , the styling and the parts that we will use for the creations we make and discuss it with our team , but it is Charles who turns the ideas into reality . Kudos !" " The dished tank is made from one of our Mustang tanks and was initially designed and meant to be a ' one-off '. But the end result was so beautiful that we immediately made a second one which we sent as a prototype to Zodiac Taiwan to have it produced there . They are already in our online catalog and the tanks should arrive soon ." The engine ( S & S 1,530 cc ) has elements from two different cylinder heads - Panhead and Shovelhead . " Basically , it is a Panhead-style ( P-Series ) engine from S & S - the ' Alt-Gen ' version , which resembles the old Generator engine , but has a modern ( alternator ) charging system . For this we have set up an S & S Shovelhead-style cylinder head . The bolt pattern is identical , only the recess of the cylinder edge in the head had to be slightly larger . It just needed us to mount longer pushrods and was good to go ," says Vincent . Featuring on the front of the upcoming new Zodiac International catalog , ' Captain Larry ' delivers " an authentic chopper riding experience ," says painter Jacco ' Royal Jack ', with " suicide clutch and manual transmission , this is real ' old school ' the way it should be . It has a bit of a Mexican ' Dias de los Muertos ' look , and I worked hard to make sure that the awesome S & S engine is the center piece of the design , showcased between the Springer fork and upswept pipes - just as it should be ." zodiac . nl / gallery / captain-larry
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