Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/714189
93 www.thunderpress.net THUNDER PRESS nSeptember 2016n by Paul d'Orleans Cliff Vaughs, best known for his creation of the Easy Rider choppers, sailed away from this world quietly on July 2, 2016, from his home in Templeton, California. Had it not been for Jesse James' History of the Chopper TV series, Vaughs would have likely vanished from history, but the question, "Who built the most famous motorcycles in the world?" needed an answer. That led Jesse to a sailboat in Panama, where he found Cliff, who'd left the USA in 1974. Why he lived alone on a sailboat in the Caribbean, instead of soaking up praise for his work on Easy Rider, and his fi lmmaking, photography, and civil rights work, is a long story. I told some of that story in my book, The Chopper; the Real Story, but Cliff's life was too big to fi t into one episode he dismissed as "three weeks of my life." Cliff Vaughs was born in Boston on April 16, 1937, to a single mother, and showed great promise as a stu- dent. He graduated from Boston Latin School and Boston University, then earned his Master of Arts at the University of Mexico in Mexico City—driving from Boston in his Triumph TR2. Moving to Los Angeles in 1961, he encountered the budding chopper scene, and soon had a green Knucklehead "chopped hog," as he called it; that's where he befriended motorcycle customizer Ben Hardy in Watts, who became his mentor. Cliff was recruited to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963, and brought his chopper to Arkansas and Alabama, where he drag raced white policemen, and visited sharecropper farms "looking like slavery had never ended." He added, "I may have been naïve thinking I could be an example to the black folks who were living in the South, but that's why I rode my chop- per in Alabama. I was never sure if the white landowners would chase me off with a shotgun. But I wanted to be a visible example to them; a free black man on my motorcycle." Cliff's chopper adventures in the SNCC was a story never told—he was too radical, too provocative, too free for the group. Casey Hayden, activist and politician Tom Hayden's fi rst wife, remembered Cliff as "a West Coast motorcyclist, a lot of leather and no shirts. Hip before anyone else was hip. A little scary and reckless." Cliff's ex-wife Wendy Vance added, "He was a true adventurer… There was just some sort of fearlessness in all situations. It did not occur to him that he was a mov- ing target on this motorcycle." Cliff was indeed a target of many failed shootings, and his tales of riding his chopper in the South were incorpo- rated into Easy Rider, after he returned to Los Angeles in 1965 to make fi lms. Cliff was associate producer on the fi lm, and oversaw the creation of the Captain America and Billy choppers, which became the most famous motor- cycles in the world. He didn't get the recognition he deserved for those bikes, partly because the whole crew was fi red when Columbia Pictures took over production, and Cliff's payout and signoff included a clause keeping him out of the fi lm's credits. Publications like Ed Roth's Choppers Magazine explored Cliff's role in Easy Rider from 1968 onwards, but both Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper at var- ious times claimed credit for building those bikes. Hopper fi nally acknowl- edged in his last year the seminal role of Cliff Vaughs, as did Peter Fonda, in 2015. Better late than never. Cliff went on to produce Not So Easy, a motorcycle safety fi lm, in 1974, but left the U.S. to live on a sailboat in the Caribbean the next 40 years. He was brought back to the U.S. in 2014, as appreciation spread for his contribution to motorcycle history, and he was celebrated at the Motorcycle Film Festival in Brooklyn last year; a documentary from his time in New York City is being edited as this moment. Godspeed, Cliff. 4 IN MEMORIAM Cliff Vaughs April 16, 1937–July 2, 2016