Continued....

The Teddy boy craze of the 1950's and the Rock n' Roll music that went with it had all curled up and died by the mid 1960ish in a hippy flurry of cheese cloth shirts and John Lennon glasses. Peace, Love, and LSD abruptly replaced the Brylcreem, bootlace ties and punch-ups with bicycle chains and cut-throat razors. The aftermath of the punk revolution in the late 1970's did much to revive rock 'n' Roll (same three chords), and once again, drape jackets, brothel creepers, and haircuts like cockatoos became en vogue with that sector of the country's youth that didn’t want to spend there Saturday nights sniffing glue and spitting at Sid vicious. Influenced by the the early Rock 'n' Roll sounds made by the likes of Bill Haley and Elvis (before he became a film star and bloated caricature of himself), Brian Setzer formed a three-piece rockabilly combo with two school chums with readymade rock star names, Lee Rock and Slim Jim Phantom. They called themselves the stray cats. However, their raw edged 'punkabilly' style was about as popular as Osama Bin Laden in their native New York, so they moved to jolly old London town, where their rough and ready music and big hair would be properly appreciated by all the new wave Teds.

Several hit records in the early 1980s, including 'Runway Boys', 'Rock This Town' and 'Stray Cat Strut'. Were followed by the inventible clash of personalities and the band broke up in 1984. Slim Jim Phantom married Britt Elkland and then went on to form a new three-piece with Lee Rocker and a guitarist from David Bowie’s band called Earl Slick. Meanwhile, Setzer followed a solo career until he reformed the Stray Cats with phantom and rocker in 1986. Then they broke up again, but reformed once more in 1989 before eventually calling it a day - almost for the final time - in the early 1990's. In 2004, the Stray Cats were reunited for a European tour, which was followed in 2007 by their most successful 'get-the-band-back-together' gig when they toured the USA with ZZ top and The Pretenders ... or, at least, the ones who were still alive.

Long time rocker and avid Stray Cats fan, Alain Bernard, decided to dedicate his Harley Panhead bobber to the influences that Brian Setzer's music have had on his decision to both sport a DA haircut and play in a rockabilly band, The Psycho Devilles. Luckily, Alain's day job is running Santiago Chopper Specialties in Gibsonton, Fl (and has had several of his bikes and trikes published in BSH), so the transformation of the Panhead from bobber to rocker - albeit not the one with the Harley - Davidson - was relatively painless. As Alain had already built a Harley for Brian Setzer that featured Elvis murals and a guitar shaped air filter, he was already on the ball with ideas for his own Stray Cats Pan.

Basically, the stray Cats Bike is the same green techno bobber Panhead, 'No Rules,' that Alain built a couple of years ago and which was features in BSH 278. The bike has the same accurate Engineering 'Panhead' engine, Roadmax 6-speed gearbox with hydraulic clutch conversion and 3" BDL belt drive primary, the same modified VG frame and the original 'Panhead' swingarm. Same Buell xb12 inverted front end and peripheral brake, and the same replica Panhead hydraulic drum brake/sprocket assembly fitted to the Sturgis smoothie 5.5 x 18-inch wheel and custom hub that Alain made to tie both components together.

The fuel tank is almost the same Custom Chrome item, though a new filler cap has since been machined up, the rear mudguard was considerably reworked in order to include 'Bixby Bridge' (as used on Brian Setzer's trademark Gretsch guitar), while the oil tank features (musical) drum on one end and a cymbal on t'other. The Sturgis Smoothie rear wheel was transformed into a huge facsimile of the Stray Cats Album, 'Struttin', a fun-sized Gretsch sits above the ignition coil and a pair of crossed drumsticks grace the front downtubes of the Vg frame. Alain did have a small version of Lee Rocker’s stand-up double bass, but couldn't find anywhere to mount it where it wouldn’t have looked daft, so he left it off. Other differences include the handlebars (considerably higher than in the bikes last incarnation), the beautiful hand-painted seat made by Alain's wife, Christine, and the Leopard skin paintwork and plethora of murals adorning the flat mint green base paint.

But while the leopard skin effect is actually honest-to-goodness paint, what appears to be intricate murals depicting the Stray Cats - in a sort of Sex Pistol 'Never Mind the Bollocks' album cover kind of way- are, in fact, stickers or 'decals' as they’re called by the skeptics. Using a recently developed process called 'flatz' just about anything can be scanned and turned into a sticker , due to the fact that said stickers are as thin and delicate as a convent girl's pubic hair, they can be attached to compound surfaces and lacquered over with clear coat to produce a finish comparable with hand-painted graphics. My old 'Art of Custom Painting' book from the 1970's shows something similar that was achieved by 'lifting' photographs off of the printed page by spraying the surface with acrylic lacquer, which would absorb the inks to ' freeze' images, and then separating the paper from the ink water. Never tried it myself, although I was dab hand with psychedelic freak drops and the acetylene smoke finish illustrated in the same book ... both of which, if satisfactory results were to be achieved, demanded the odd combination of lots of min-altering drug and a rock steady hand.