What 'Easy Rider' Left Out About the Men Who Built the Bikes

In 2014 the Captain America chopper from Easy Rider hammered at $1,350,000, and then the sale fell apart. Ten years later the same bike sold for $302,400. And the men who actually designed and built it never got their names on the film. This is the story of Cliff Vaughs, the civil rights photographer and chopper builder who oversaw the Easy Rider bikes, Ben Hardy, the Watts builder who built the hero pair from ex-LAPD Panheads, and Larry Marcus, the mechanic who built the crash bikes in a Santa Monica garage. It covers the two Captain Americas that Dan Haggerty authenticated, the fight over which one was real, how the bikes were built, why Vaughs was fired in New Orleans, the $333 severance that came with a no-credit clause, and Peter Fonda's 2014 letter finally acknowledging Vaughs and Hardy for the design. It also lays out, honestly, what is still argued about, including who named the film and where the ending came from. Ride, or used to? More of these every week:    / @two-wheeltruth   Sources include the Los Angeles Times, NPR's Fresh Air, Paul d'Orleans's interviews with Vaughs and Marcus for The Vintagent and The Chopper: The Real Story, Fonda's published 2014 letter, and the Profiles in History and Propstore auction records. 0:00 The Million Dollar Mystery Bike 3:27 The Hidden Network in Watts 6:22 The Extraordinary Life of Cliff 'Sonny' Vos 9:55 The Messy Origins of Easy Rider 12:35 Engineering the Iconic Chopper 23:45 The Final Recognition of the True Builders