Garage Company
A snowy Sunday seems an appropriate time to look at a more sunny adventure.
A few years back in January, a buddy and I were traveling to Los Angeles on what might be categorized as an alcoholic quest, but I had carte blanche on the first few days of the trip. With my admittedly limited knowledge of LA, I only had 1 place that I needed to visit. We made a beeline from the airport to one of the coolest (vintage) motorcycle establishments I’ve ever seen: Garage Company
I saw pictures of this place once or twice around the internet before and it looked quite interesting. I was in for an eyeful once I got there:
The only way I can describe this place is an overwhelming shrine to 2 wheels. After being in there for a while, I got to a point were my attention was being pulled in every direction as every corner I turned revealed a new wrinkle in what was already a notable collection. There were 2 stroke race bikes, choppers, drag bikes, rare and tricked out road bikes, pretty much everything I could wish to swing a leg over. In the back there was a full working shop and they happened to be working on a few British bikes when I wandered back there. Yoshi, the owner is an incredibly cool dude who embraces the fact that his shop has become a museum of sorts for awestruck people like myself, and lets face it, I was basically a tourist when I walked through the door.
10 responses to “Garage Company”
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Random
Blast
From Past
Published - Jul 3, 2011
cb650 seat – upholstered pad
Seat is finally 100% done. Took about 2 months from conception on paper to finished product. It was my first time doing metal stuff like this. The seat def has some minor imperfections… but it has character. I designed the pad, and had someone upholster it for me.
Looks awesome. That’s cool the owner got into motorcycles after video games.
Nice photos. That place looks awesome
I’m jealous, it’s on my list for my next la trip, he has no favorites as he builds a bit of everything. His cb750 drag bikes are rad and he even built Beckham’s antiqued harley. Thanx for the cool photos mike!
That green Rickman Z1 with gold wheels, looks sick.
Yeah that’s the only time I’ve seen a Rickman. Same for the Bimota. I was super psyched on the RZ500 and other Yamaha 2 stroke road bikes as well.
I keep looking at that drag bike and I can’t figureout that KZ motor setup. Is the intake facing the front of the bike?
I dont remember taking note when I was there, but it actually looks like the the whole engine is backwards. The cylinders look like they are canted backwards instead of forward, and it looks like the right side of the rear wheel has a bigass sprocket on it, where the rotor normally goes. I guess if you are running that wide of a wheel, you are going to have an outboard bearing on the countershaft, or run a offset shaft. Either way, the offset should be enough for the drive chain to clear the crankshaft and whatever is still attached to it.
Yea that drag bike is insane. I’m impressed with what it probably took to make that thing. Guys would have to be part fabricator, engineer, machinist, welder, etc, to make something like that. A whole other level of creating a motorcycle.
wow. this place is awesome. I am also very intrigued by the motor setup on that drag bike. That motor is definitely installed backwards and whatever fabrication that went into installing that supercharger is pretty impressive! I would love to know more about what went into that engine build. I bet the internals are every bit as impressive as what we can see from the outside. Would be great to know what kind of power that puts out as well!
The world needs more places like this!