Also a lot of late 50's and 60's cars had the radiator mounted way back from the grille. Keeping things cool may have been a problem, but an intake manifold or exaust manifold makes a nice toaster oven. Thanks for the ejecasion leasons but I know all there is about cooling beer and hauling pizza. I knew a guy who stopped after work to buy a large supreme pizza to haul 15 miles home for supper.... Yea supper. As in the evening meal after dinner. Well this guy just happened to be riding a 1950 Panhead Harley with fancy leather saddle bags. The kind with leather streamers and shiny silver buckles. See sample below. The hot juicy pizza had to be hauled vertically to fit. Not a pretty site after the bumpy 15 mile ride home, so I was told. The pizza was still good to eat. Part two of two parts. This same guy and his lovely wife were taking a 100 mile motorsicle ride up the river to a state park called Starved Rock, along the Illinoiz river. As the story goes many Illini and other groups of American Indians were forced to be shot or jump off the large rock formation to their death on the river bank below, or starve to death. Low river and large boulders made swimming difficult. Back to the beer and bike ride. The smart young wife filled the two leather saddle bags with ice cubes which were made in her very own refridgerator. The even smarter young man then shoved as many bottled beers as he could into the ice in those bags. After we, they, reached their destination they were sun burned, hot, and butt sore. Old Harleys and skinny butts don't mix. Since this happened many years ago, all I remember is most, if not all, bottles of beer were now empty chunks of brown broken glass. Water from a nearby fountain was drank, drunk, sipped that afternoon long long ago. This is not the actual Harley or the actual young wife. Just a similar photo for your background enjoyment. In fact this may have been in Italy, much farther than we've ever ridden a bike. Mine, his, the real bike, did have one of the rare last tank shifts. The moral of this story is if you plan on hauling beer in leather bags buy it in cans and stop at Subway or Pizza Hut. Oh yea, those places weren't invented back then.
Ooh, a suicide shifter. Yeah. Dad told me about wiping out a friend's Indian motorcycle in a T-intersection, on gravel, while turning, and downshifting. He ended up in the guy's front yard at the top of the T, while the guy was sitting on his front porch. Dad got up, righted the motorcycle, fired it up, then rode out, all the while the guy's sitting on his porch, watching. I remarked to Dad that he was lucky he didn't end up with a butt load of bird shot or rock salt.
Those old tank shifters weren't the easiest or fastest to shift. I see why most guys converted them but a 1950 non-police bike was rare with the tank shifter. Moving to Florida caused me to sell it to a friend. I could have bought an early Indian bike another friend had. He told me it's a basket case. I didn't realize how many baskets an Indian needed. In hindsite shoulda bought it but I'd sold it too. Old bikes and older riders.
Doofuses are standing, I mean STANDING, on the decklids of their sports cars, and all you notice is an elderly couple's wrinkled shorts?
