| Author | Message | ||
     Al_lighton  |
A few weeks back, I got a call at American Sport Bike from a gent in Australia working on a movie called Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage. For you Marvel comic book fans out there, you probably know about the basis for the story. I vaguely recall it from kid-ness, but the story goes something like this: Johnny Blaze is a motorcycle stuntrider who makes a pact with the devil that will allow him to avenge a wrongdoing to a loved one. By day, Blaze is a normal man, but at night he is transformed into a burning skeletal demon on wheels who hunts down those who have brought pain to the innocent. The guy that called me had been asked by the producer/director to transform a Buell X1 in a week. They were blinging it out big time, billet pieces, Banke and CRG levers, Nallin mounts, chrome covers, NO2 cylinders on each side of the tank, and were adding an underseat exhaust  . I explained to him that he must be very careful with that concept, given the Buell isoplanar vibration isolation system, but he had his orders and a big budget to make it happen. He explained that if the bike turned out good and appealed to the driector/producer, he would need to turn around and make 5 more just like it. That has occurred, and I've delivered a bunch of parts to them to make it happen. Kicked my ••• getting a bunch of parts fast, but it was a nice sale  From what I've been able to glean from the guy, there are 4 bikes used: The X1, an XR750 type streetracker type, an old school chopper, and the demon bike that he rides at night that is a custom beastie based on a thumper engine and LOTS of fiberglass (and torches, I imagine). I really don't know any other details, but with 6 X1's to bling out and crash, I think it will figure prominently in the movie. I think it will be involved in a lot of stunt riding, he mentioned jumping it and put works shocks on them. I told him to please make sure the guys doing the sound know what a Buell sounds like and to not use some IL4 sound file for the beast! Should be released in 2006. Do a Google search on Ghost Rider and Nicholas Cage and you'll get lots of hits. Always nice to see our machines of choice getting additional publicity. Al | ||
| Buelltroll  |
Kind of a personal question and I'd understand if you told me to go •••• up a rope but,How much money did you make on a deal like that? | ||
| Seanp  |
Great, now I have Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" stuck in my head... At least I know what CD I'll listen to on my way in to work today. | ||
| Midknyte |
Great, now I have Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders In the Sky" stuck in my head... Here, this'll take care of that... http://prettypictures.com/maim/ mmmm, Dueling Banjos this time! | ||
| Tripper  |
Allow me Al.... Troll, go •••• up a rope. AND HOLD THE ROPE TIGHT. | ||
| M1combat  |
"Always nice to see our machines of choice getting additional publicity. " And even nicer to hear that one of our vendors of choice got a good sale out of it . | ||
| Rek  |
Saw an ad for Will Smith's newest movie (don't recall name)last night and it appeared he rode a white Buell. Has anyone else seen this? Rob | ||
| Blublak  |
Hmmm.. Figures.. I remember the old comic.. It was pretty cool.. Blaze was basically Bubba Blackwell working for a 'carnival' type show.. He jumped stuff etc.. Then, his father had problems and died, the devil seeing his chance comes and tells him daddy will burn unless someone balances the books. So he agrees to 'sell his soul' and it begins. Backstory is that 'Zarathos' the daemon of vengeance was making a play to take over hell (Satan being too soft on the sinners) and had to be 'dealt with' before it could be a real revolt of the demons. Phew.. I also remember that his 'fire' didn't burn the flesh, but the soul. And the bike he created (a long fork chopper) from fire could do little things like.. Ride up a vertical face. Jump with the best of them.. etc. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the story, since the original had a lot of religious overtones and some apocryphal elements to it. Wow, I forgot I had all that info bouncing around in my head.. Later, | ||
| Midknyte |
Will Smith's newest movie (don't recall name) That would be, Hitch | ||
| Wyckedflesh  |
The bike was an XR750 during the day, and became the Hell Bike after. In later incarnations it was most definatley an Armoured Beast reminiscent of a chopper that had a cattlegaurd mounted to the front... | ||
| Spiderman  |
Sweeeetttt another Marvel Movie!!! | ||
| Blackbelt  |
GREAT HERE WE GO AGAIN | ||
| Outrider  |
Gee...Wonder if that flick will boost the popularity and resale value of the X1's??? | ||
| Tucsonxb9s  |
Probably not...I don't think the general public will even know what they're looking at or even care. It is really cool that Hollywood chose one of our own though. Way to go Al! I hope you're documenting your progress with lots of pics. I'd love to see the finished products (of course when you're allowed!). Hmmmmmmmm....Maybe you could market a limited edition Ghost Rider X1 (Ducati Matrix style) after the film is released.... | ||
| Seanp |
Midknyte - that's what I've been looking for all my life! Awesome! I get tunes stuck in my head if I even hear two or three notes. My friends know it, and do evil things like whistle three or four notes from some annoying commercial or something just before I have to take a test or really concentrate on something important. I used to get "Bad Medicine" stuck in my head before I ran long distances when I was in college. That was pure torture. Now if I can figure out how to download the entire site and put it in my Pocket PC... This movie sounds pretty interesting though. It's a good concept - but maybe I'm a bit confused - is he a good guy or a bad guy? Or one of those good bad guys? I guess if he's on a Buell he must be a good guy. | ||
| Blublak |
He's a bit of both.. depends on which version of GR they use. All in all, he's a hero, when he was created and slowly the human lost control of the demon.. well.. some folks got punished for things like.. popping a wheelie on the street. It's a violation! Retribution must be extracted! Or, will he be the later, re-incarnation that Marvel did, I think they just needed another brooding brutal 'hero' they could try and mold in the "Punisher & Wolverine" ethos of hyper violent heros. (anyone besides me notice how as he got more popular, Wolverine lost his maniacal blood lust?) I guess we'll just have to wait and see. later, | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
Ever read "Ghost Rider" by Neil Peart. It's a great story about a guy who hops on his beemer and does 55,000 miles in 14 months trying to figure out what his life means in the wake of the death of his wife and daughter. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Alex, You ARE the ghost rider (or at least your avatar is)! Flames, skull head, that's pretty much the demon guy. Without going into the specifics, we sold about $19K worth of billet parts and shocks for the 6 ghost rider bikes. Everything on it that we supplied was stuff from our normal suppliers, much of it from distribution, selected from our web page by the guys responsible for conceptualizing the bike. It's a nice sale, we've had months where we barely sold that much stuff. Figure normal MC business retail gross margins (not the highest retail margins out there in retail land) on that, subtract out overhead and expediting fees because they needed ALL of this stuff in Australia RIGHT AWAY, and you'll have an idea of what we made. I can say it is the single biggest sale that American Sport Bike has ever had, not likely to be matched any time soon. Not too many people bling out a bike all at once, and even fewer do more than one that way. I wish!! We're not doing any of the work on the bikes, just supplying parts and some Buell specific technical advice. The bikes are being built in Australia. They had a short period of time to scare up 6 X1's in Australia. All but 1 had the 16.5" shocks on them, so either they didn't force the shock recall in Australia, or 5 of the 6 bikes were 1999 X1's. I probably won't see the finished product any time before you guys do. The guys doing the building have had a few questions for me that I help them with, but it sounds like they're in pretty good hands. The underseat exhaust is a silly concept, but it's for looks, not performance, so I understand why they did it. Still, I made sure I took the time to explain to them that if they didn't come up with a flexible element in the exhaust, they'd be lucky to finish a single shot without dropping the pipe on the ground. I sold them some of the isolator stiffeners to help with that too. Kinda fun to know I helped with the bike that will be in the movie. Don't think I'll get any credits for helping, but they said that they'd drop the right names to the MC press when the time came. I've bent over backwards to get the stuff to them fast, and they said they wished the rest of the motorcycle industry was as efficient as we were in getting the stuff they needed, so that was cool. There's some interesting movie tidbits here I can't wait to see the final result! Al | ||
| Pdxs3t  |
Way cool Al, will be neat to see the end result when the movie is relased. Jim PS - package came in today, lookin forward to see how well it holds up in the race can, will let know. | ||
| Timbo  |
Good to hear Al. Got my package yesterday, thanks. Guess the other guy got the rearsets. Oh well. | ||
| Paulinoz  |
"All but 1 had the 16.5" shocks on them, so either they didn't force the shock recall in Australia, or 5 of the 6 bikes were 1999 X1's." My Guess is the bikes would have been 1999 after the Sh..... hit the fan down here on recalls etc the later version of the Tubers sold very slow, hence not to many 2000 - 2002 around. Thats all water under the bridge with the XB range now. Seem to remeber a figure of 200 Buells on the road in Australia in 1999. Each year they list the top 100 New model bikes sold in Oz never seen a Buell in that list and position 100 is usually around 15 units / year. I bet we will see Buell in that list soon if they can keep the supply up to The Land of Oz. Congrats on the sale Al, I know whats involved in putting together a large order in short time, I am betting you earned every buck you made on the deal. | ||
| Al_lighton |
Wow. With that few Buells down there, it's impressive that they were able to hunt down 6 of them within 2 weeks. Yup Timbo, sorry, but Dennis (Lake Bueller) and Roger (Gndskeeper) both beat you to them by a couple hours, and they worked it out between them who got to get the rearsets. A couple others after you wanted them too. They were more popular than I guessed they would be. I'll let you know first if I should find any others. Al | ||
| Court |
Buell shows up in some places you'd never expect to find them..... | ||
| Glitch  |
I remember Ghost Rider, and have been following the making of the movie. Looks as though it may come out this time. I bought a Suzuki GS550 once just because that's what the Ghost Rider rode in the original comic. | ||
| Timbo |
Cool. Thanks Al. | ||
| Blublak |
Hey Glitch.. Didn't Johnny ride the GS, and the fire bike was some sort of chopper.. (I know, I could never find a hell fire bike that was affordable either) Later, | ||
| Glitch |
I believe you're right. And the only Hell Fire Bike I've owned wasn't intended to be that way! | ||
| Al_lighton |
I have some shots of the Buell X1 used in the movie. This X1 has a custom 6 of a kind under seat exhaust (they built 6 bikes) and custom aluminum oil tank to accommodate it. Most of the dress up parts came from American Sport Bike. Here's the pictures:     | ||
| Outrider |
Wow...Now that is what I want my X1 to look like when it grows up!!! | ||
| Mikej |
Al, Would you happen to know what tires are on that X1? Thanks. Mike. |
