I’ve known and worked with Gene Thomason at Bartels’ H-D in Marina Del Rey, California for about 35 years. He was always known for his Harley-Davidson and Marlboro Man bikes, but he worked with way more celebrities during his long history with Bartels.
Gene has been with Bartels’ most of his adult life, for 35 years. His son Gene Jr. ran the Harley-Davidson fleet center for years and still handles, and prepares factory bikes for photo shoots, the media, promotional opportunities and Hollywood activities. And yesterday I heard that Gene Jr.’s son is in the mix. That’s sorta incredible.
“When I was in high school, I put on a suit, went into a bank,” said Gene. “Told them I was married with a kid and needed $400 for furniture. Got the loan and bought a 250cc Triumph. That didn’t last long. Got a 500cc Triumph single, then an XLCH–the fastest vehicle on the road at that time. My father and my older brother had H-Ds, so that helped. After middle-aged crazies at a young age, I walked into Bartels’ and never left. All true.”
That started a magnificent motorcycle career in the center of Los Angeles at one of the largest, best known dealerships in the country. So many things in life are happenstance, if people will let the chips fall where they may. I recently spoke to Ron (son) and Bill Bartels’ (dad). Bartels has been around for 36 years and Ron seemed to remember everything Gene ever did.
“He was great with people,” Ron said, “But not with paperwork.”
Gene hailed from New Jersey, where his family owned a printing business. He tried to follow the traditional path. He stayed close to the family business and got married, but something more called to Gene like a bullhorn during a police raid. Maybe it had something to do with motorcycles. Around 1983 Gene blew up his life, got divorced and peeled out. He rode that XLCH to Las Vegas, where life would never be the same.
Blowing through funds, he rode to the West coast and found this new dealership run by the calm and collected family man, Bill Bartels. Gene bought not one but two FXRs and started to run out of money. Where Bill was all about focusing on running his new dealership, formerly LA Harley, Gene was a wild man full of enthusiasm and drive. It made for a progressive team.
Running back and forth to the girls in Vegas, Gene rapidly ran out of money and motorcycles seriously entered his blood stream. He came to LA and offered to do anything with Bartels’ Harley. His first assignment was cleaning bikes, short-lived he moved into sales.
Then in ’86 the factory came up with a notion to promote a cross-country ride with the company executives to promote the new reliable Evo drivetrain. Gene signed up as a representative for Bartels’ and off he rode into the sunrise toward Milwaukee. This is where Gene’s true talent blossomed. He never hesitated to speak and get to know the bosses. He became close with Vaughn Beals, the CEO of Harley-Davidson, who helped with the leveraged buy-out of Harley from AMF and ultimately the company going public.
Through this relationship Gene returned with one of the very first HOG chapters LA-1 HOG. This happened during the introduction of the HOG (Harley Owners Group) notion initiated by Vice President Clyde Fessler, and there were no rules. It was just a wild group of Bartels’ guys having a helluva party every week roaming the streets of Los Angeles, the coast and Hollywood.
“It was a bold statement,” Ron said, “but we backed it up.”
They started renting bikes to the studios and that’s were Gene shined. He partied with Mickey Rourke. When a celebrity came into the shop, Gene immediately introduced himself. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t a massive name yet, but he hung out at the shop after hitting Gold’s Gym in Venice. Sylvester Stallone came around and Gene immediately made friends with him. Gene worked with Bruce Willis, George Clooney, Brian Bosworth
Gene was right on the spot when Gary Bussey went down and suffered a head injury. California still didn’t have a helmet law, but that unfortunately would soon change. Gene worked with them all and helped with a new movie effort “American MC,” which never took off.
Here’s a list of the celebrities Gene worked with over the years. The following will contain notes from Gene about working with Hollywood celebrities and rock stars.
Steve Tyler
Hulk Hogan
Marvin Davis
Bruce Springsteen
Michael Bowen
Mel Gibson
Heather Lockler
Elizabeth Taylor
Nicholas Cage
Stallone
White Snake
Sonny Bono
Jay Leno
Jeff Hampton
Chrome Hearts
Stevie Nicks
U20Bono and the drummer guy
Paul Mitchell
Chip & Pepper
Joe Walsh
Then we have a chunk of the story by Paul Garson wrote about the Marlboro Man bike, which was built by Gene. The full story is here on Bikernet.
A Segment of Paul’s Marlboro Man Story:
Mickey Rourke is one of those politically incorrect anti-heroes, a boxer/actor who has punched his way through all kinds of obstacles to reach iconic Hollywood stature, albeit not one of the “politically correct” of Tinsel Town, not that he probably gives a damn. He’s just plain too hard core as evidenced in real life and reflected in his film characters.
In any case, it was a quantum leap beyond one of his previous efforts, that being “Harley-Davidson and the Marlboro Man” which debuted to less than rave reviews in 1991.
Some say the Black Death bike has reached the status of the Captain America Easy Rider bike.
Will the Real Black Death Please Stand Up?
Photos found on the Internet, purportedly showing Black Death 3. Probably clone because it features lots more chrome and the engine does not show the “V” shaved cylinder fins. By the way, the bike ridden in the movie by Don Johnson was a Kawasaki “chopper.” Don’t ask me who built it; I’m sure that’s another whole story, but probably one nobody’s too interested in.
Back to the movie and the scuttlebutt about the bike or bikes. It seems the famous dealership, Bartels, located in Marina Del Rey, CA, got the contract to build the bike. They started with a 1989 FXR and eventually built Black Death 1 and Black Death 2, one serving as Mickey’s personal scooter, the other utilized for stunt work, jumps, crashes, etc. for filming. As the stories go, for some reason they were scrapped and a third version was then built, resulting in the final iteration of Black Death aka BD3.
Original McCoy? Or McCoy’s?
Original photo of newly built Black Death “movie bike,” the version that appeared in the film. Notice pipes are not chromed. Photo from Bartels’ Gene Thomason, a member of the Bartels’ team that built the real deal.
A 1997 published story gave some specs for the bike: chrome swingarm, solid steel struts on the rear replacing the FXR stock shocks, shortened Don Crager seat and fender, the latter hinged and doubling as the seat pan.
The 5-gallon Softail gas tank left in primer wore a 6-inch plate down the center. The artwork is of playing cards reportedly inscribed with initials of some of Mickey’s friends.
Don’t miss Paul’s full story:
https://www.bikernet.com/pages/story_detail.aspx?id=8911&id=8911
“Elizabeth Taylor bought two Harleys from Bartels, one for Malcolm Forbes and one for her boyfriend at the time,” Gene wrote, because he suffered from throat cancer and has a tough time on the phone. “I delivered the boyfriends bike and placed it under her Christmas tree.”
Gene worked with Arnold during the filming of the Terminator. “Oh yeah,” Gene wrote. “He got one of the first Heritages and we always worked on his FLH. Just to be clear, the bikes I built for the Terminator were used in a promotion, not the movie.”
In 1991 before we were forced to wear helmets, Gene had an accident on Jefferson Blvd. and faced a head injury, which put him down for a couple of months. When he returned, the winds were smacked from his sails and he slowed and started to work in the shop with the mechanics. As he healed, he got more involved and more tools, until he was a fully trained mechanic.
During the Sons of Anarchy reign Gene helped with an effort to build a line of Dynas for a Kurt Sutter promotion with FOX broadcasting. They built 40 bikes, some with the help of Rusty Coones, of Illusions Cycles, but only one was sold in California. Many slipped overseas. The factory didn’t want to be involved, so the Bartels crew bought used Dynas, modified them and branded them with SOA signage.
Gene stayed involved and became the manager of the H-D fleet center for several years. “Mean Gene didn’t mess around, even at 71,” said Ron Bartels. A young punk tried to steal a bike from in front of the shop one blistering summer day, and Gene jacked him up and prevented the theft.
“You’re not going anywhere on that motorcycle,” Gene snapped.
When the LA cops arrived on the scene the kid complained of violence. “You’ve got to be kidding the cop said. “He’s 71 years old and has cancer.”
Gene has escaped to the inland valley to deal with lung cancer, but he will always have a home at Bartels Harley-Davidson. “He didn’t need to leave so soon,” Ron said. Gene partied and lived a wild motorcycle existence, while always backed by the solid, stable Bartels’ family. He was a lucky Mofo.
