Hollywood is a strange place. Nothing seems real. You could run into a girl dressed like the baddest biker chick in the world, only to find she's never ridden a motorcycle. She just bought the threads at some too-cool, too-expensive boutique. I'm not kidding.
I was delivered to the Ralph Lauren Vintage clothes shop on Melrose Boulevard, while we were waiting for Evan Yaniv to return to his back alley shop, Power Plant. Some of the clothes hanging in this shop are vintage, some are not, but all are expensive. There's a denim Navy P-coat with old canvas worked into the mix for almost a grand. There was a denim shirt covered in old paint for $400. It reminded me of a shirt I threw away ten years ago. Crazy. Don't throw away your old shit. Send it to Ralph Lauren.
If you're ever invited to a too-cool Hollywood party, you might run into your old shirt. It's nuts. Even Evan's shop is built behind a clothing store, Johnson Motors, with a wall of industrial glass in between. So the folks who come to peruse Johnson Motors attire think that there's a connection between the clothing and the guys out back building real motorcycles. The clothing is based on old motorcycle racing literature that's copied and imprinted on shirts for that nostalgic look.
“Fortunately, the lease is up,” Evan said. “I'm going to take over the retail shop and develop my own Power Plant apparel line.” At least customers will be purchasing the real deal, not a knock-off or a fake vintage shirt. “We are working on our own line of 501 and Dickies-styled denims for bikers, with snaps and straps for kick-only bikes and pads for hot pipe protection.”
Evan immigrated to Tampa, Florida from Israel at the age of eight, and then to Los Angeles in '88, where he got booted from high school and then dropped out of an aviation mechanic school after eight months.
“My dad was a chef, and I worked in kitchens whiled tinkering with bikes,” Evan said. He learned the basics of riveting, sheet metal fabrication and the molecular structure of metals at the aviation school, but it got old fast. He needed to dive into the hot rod mix, so he took the Gene Whitfield $500 weekend sheet metal class.
“Gene's Canoga Park shop was stuffed with chopped cars that came to my waist and were less than a foot apart,” Evan said. “We leaned against one '50s Merc while sanding on another one. The supplied lunch was shitty, but it was a fantastic crash course.”
He learned the English wheel, TIG welding, oxy-acetylene, hammer-welding, chopping roofs, and lead filling. Afterwards, Evan asked for a job, anything to stick around. “I swept floors,” he said.
He went on to work for Jim Bruns and Jim Bruns Sr.
“They never had a commercial shop, just a big garage behind their house,” Evan said. It was packed with '30s cars and '49-'51 chopped Mercs. “He was a master at chopping Mercs.”
Evan worked for the Bruns and lived in Hollywood, where he built his first custom Triumph in his garage.
“My neighbors hated me,” Evan said. “The more we worked on bikes, the more fun we had. We weren't in it for the money, but we had to move out of my garage.”
He rented a two-car commercial garage and needed to get hooked up for dealer pricing. “I had to put a sign on the garage to be legitimate with V-Twin, so we did and found ourselves in business.”
Since he lives in Hollywood, he's been caught up in the scene from time to time. He was the principal actor in a Harley-Davidson Sportster Commercial, then picked up to build the Geico, Cave Man bike for the Chopper Challenge.
“We are in the pre-production phase of season two of The Chopper Challenge,” said Eric.
So there's Evan's flying wheel history. This bike is indicative of his style. He likes vintage scooters, with a flair for the real, and mechanical.
“100,000 dollar choppers are gone,” Evan said. “I've always built tight, unfinished chops.”
It's not about flashy paint jobs, but finely tuned mechanical bikes with very little billet and lot of mechanical parts built by hand.
“It's stuff the average guy would never even notice, or know was hand-built.”
Evan doesn't like selling parts or bikes to strangers. “I still don't do it for the money. I want to see my bikes and parts around town. I don't want to loose one or ship parts across the country and never see them again.”
Evan and I talked about Bonneville, makin' parts, lathes, and tooling. We could have shot the shit all night long, but I had to roll, and he was waiting for a paint job to arrive so he could finish a customer's bike. You'll be able to see this bike wherever the Chopper Challenge KeyBoard sponsored semi attends an event like Laughlin or Sturgis.
We asked Eric Harryman, the producer, to throw in his two cents worth regarding the Chopper Challenge, “The Chopper Challenge was a huge success growing the network ratings by 24 percent. It was number one for the CMT/MTV/Viacom in 2008 and Yaniv was a terrific contestant. His caveman bike was an excellent and very unique show addition, out of the nine created for the show. He has a very young take on an old school feel. And yes, you can kick it! It runs like a champ and is simply great to look at. The guy's got talent and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.”
–Eric L. Harryman
