Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

was expanding in spite o f the problems, progressing through the Series 1000 and Phantom fairings and moving the o peration in to an old fo od locker plant. He knew he had to do something new, starting from scratch. When he hit on it, the solution was brilliant. All b ikes are essentially the sam e from the bottom of the gas tank upward; so the solution was one upper-body fairing and about 40 hardware-mounting brackets to cover the motorcy cle spectrum . It was one short step from this realization to the conc ep t o f the phenomenally successful and heavily imitated Windjammer series of fairings. Almost imm edia tely , the business outgrew the locker plant. In 197 2, Craig moved the whole operation out to its present lo ca tion and co ns tructed one pre-fab building after anoth er as t he sales vo lume contin ue d to balloo n. He 'd already made his mark as a bnl liant inn ovator, bu t he wasn 't abou t to stop and rest. Fo r o rie thing, he wa s quick to become diss atisfied with fiberglass as a fairing material. The stuff is subject to age-ernbrittlement, fatigue cracking, and besides th e production molds, t hem selves made fro m fib erglass, tend to warp over a period of time, pl ay ing regul ar hell with qualit y control. But that's not all. "We 're still not sure about the environmental effects of fiberglass. I put But what about the GAM? Vetter 's company is still officially a fairin g manufacturer and a distributor of Rickman chassis and Carillo lights. But Craig himself has eyes on the horizon and an unquestioned desire to put his personal stamp on a complete motorcycle that will be. as innovative as an ything he 's ever done. Thus it was no accident that he took on the Rickman line, as much to learn the secrets of high sp eed handling as to m ake money, o r . that he wo uld create the Terraplane sidecar " as a warmup p roject. " "I knew in evitably I'd do th e sidecar .. . in fact, I made the original sketch of it on an old copy of Cycle News. " He went directly fr o m clay model to prototype and burst it on t he world at last year's trade shows " o n ly to be embarrassed that we didn 't have the resources to produce it .. . .. But he had made his poin t, in dramatic fashio n. Sidehac k design will never.b e t he same again . In st ub bing his toe o n th e sidecar , however , Craig dis cov ered how gian t a step it is fr o m being ab le to ma ke one product excep tio na lly well to asse mbling an entire ma chine. He's begun to draw the pie ces to gether even as he ex pands the fairin g lin e and incr eases his capi tal assets, bu t as he pu ts i t , " We're still an engine away" from a co mp lete mo torcy cle, . This w as a natu ral time to men tion Ken ncd y . and his engine. Vetter said .. (Below) The Vetter complex was once a cornfield, Craig's hang gliding practice hill is out of view in the back forty. (Above) This heavy-duty looking 'machine is what molds fairing shells from ABS plastic. The secret part is where you can't see it . Is she ready to solo? Has Rider Education come of age? Will the Foos-bar simulator ever replace the real thing? Has our boy got a chance for a mature relationship? ~ YOU· •• never firid out if you don·t SUBSCRIBE! my workers in air . helmets and watercooled suits to be damn sure th ey - weren't exp ose d to an y hannful e ffec ts, even though th e equipment was cl umsy and slo wed us down. " He was doing this well be fore it wa s common knowledge that asbestos fiberS and o ther industrial residues could cause canc er. Th is rnan is morc than just an en treprene ur. So he started looking fo r th e ideal fairin g material and found " a certain grade of ABS " - a strong, im pact resistant thermoforming p lastic that had been offered to the auto industry as an alternative to steel in car bodies. Once again he 'd made a brilliant breakthrough, and the result was an environmcntally clea n, high volume , high quality production process. The fairing shells, inners and outers, are vacuum molded from sheets of ABS on four-station automatic a rotary machine. One st ation is for loading/unloading of th e parts, one is for heating the sheets to fo rm ing temperatu re, the next is fo r vacuum drawing t he so fte ned sh eet in to a perman ent mold, then the p art is aircooled, The, molds themse lves, a close ly-guarded Vetter trade secret, can bc q uick-ch anged be tween production runs of a given molding. th en, u I ho pe th ere 's an area o f co mm o n in te rest. I've talked wi th Kenned y and I think he 's on the right track." They're still talking as t his is wri t ten . . So Ve t ter 's ambitions re st at a low idle as he co n ti nues to buil d his financial base. " It's just a mat ter o f expanding to be large enough to handle it (the GAM ). Don't co un t us out ... When we do it , it won't be orthodo x at all ... I'vc go t p arts, I've go t a factory , I'm the boss. No one can tell me not to do it. " That's a heavy list of reasons why. So why no t? • This concludes th e fa cto ry tour series based o n Campbell's trip East, but it 's far from th e end of the story. At th is writing CN is aware of an outfit that's plqnn ing to assemble choppers around surplus Yamaha TX750 engin es; and Ken Maely is ex pe cted to sprin'g a complete' new speed way bik e o n an expe ctant wo rld som etime early this ye ar. If this fa ctfinding tour proved anything, it's how deep seat ed is the desire . on th e part of pro ducers and riders alik e to see a dynamic American m otorcycle industry come to be --' and with it, th e Great A merican Mot or cy cle. I I I I I DEPT. SUB. P.O. BOX 498 LO;l;G BEACH, CALI FO R1I A 9080 1 H CYCLE NEWS WEST (1 yr.l CYCLE NEWS WEST (2 yrs.) . . CYCLE NEWS WEST (3 yrs.l .' 512.50 22.00 30.00 Via 1st class mail for one year 40 .00 Via air mail for one year 50.00 This is a Renewal P:Oase bill me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. I enclose cheek or money order . .. . -, . . . . . . LJ 0 0 0 0 0 I I 0 0 I Name C Plea.. pl'in t legibl yl Add ress Slate Z ip I 31

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