FEATURE – 1966 Harley-Davidson Sportster Evel Knievel tribute
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: Courtesy of Iconic Auctioneers
If you’re of a certain age, Evel Knievel is a name that needs no introduction. For more than a decade, Knievel was the biggest thing on two wheels, inspiring generations of young daredevils and creating a legacy that exists to this day. Some have emulated Knievel’s feats, while others have been inspired to recreate the motorcycles he rode to success – and failure – in those feats.
Without Evel Knievel, there wouldn’t be the Crusty Demons, Nitro Circus or the entire freestyle motocross scene. Simple as that. Modern-day daredevils, like Robbie Maddison and Seth Enslow, all drew inspiration from Knievel - whether they admit it or not. But not everyone who was inspired by Knievel as a child grew up to imitate his feats. Some, like John Timoney, were content to build a replica of one of the bikes that Knievel rode over his career.
A native of the UK, Timoney was a nine-year-old boy when he witnessed Knievel undertake one of his more memorable stunts – a jump over thirteen buses at London’s Wembley Stadium in 1975. That stunt, along with the Caesar’s Palace jump in 1967 and the Snake River Canyon jump in 1974, are regarded as the “Big Three” in Knievel’s career. Ironically, all were failures but they’re the best remembered, while the many, many jumps that Knievel landed successfully have been forgotten.
UK Invasion
To put the 1975 Wembley jump into context, Knievel was already a major celebrity by this time, but all his jumps up to that point had been in the US or Canada. The reasoning behind going “international” for what would be his first major jump after the Snake River Canyon fiasco is unclear, but avoiding an increasingly critical North American media probably had something do with it.
Thefts, violence and an alleged rape at Snake River Canyon, along with intimidating behaviour by Knievel’s own security team, had tarnished the daredevil’s image. Choosing a new, faraway location for his comeback jump would, hopefully, not bring old problems with it.
Thanks to TV broadcasts of many of his jumps, Knievel was known in the UK, so drumming up a paying crowd shouldn’t have been a problem. However, it’s alleged that when he landed in London on 6 May, ahead of the scheduled jump date of 26 May, just 3,000 tickets had been sold. The PR team was sacked and Knievel took over hyping his own show. Knievel was as much showman as stuntman (a skill he’d acquired through his early days of daredevilry), so playing up himself and the danger of what he was doing came naturally.
Other apocryphal stories regarding the Wembley Stadium jump include crowd sizes that vary from under 60,000 to the venue’s capacity of 90,000. The number and type of buses vary, too, with some saying he jumped ten and some thirteen, while others claim he jumped the famous double-decker red buses. These latter tales are easier to disprove, as there’s footage from the event that clearly show they’re single-deck buses and that there were thirteen of them, not ten.
Knievel brought three bikes with him to London; all Harley-Davidson XR-750s of the type that he’d been using since 1970. These had similar ‘star spangled’ paint schemes, but some mechanical variations. Two would be the “jump” bikes, with the third only used for wheelies as part of the pre-show build-up.
Abandoning the cape used previously, Knievel debuted a different take on his star-spangled jumpsuit in London, too. Instead of the familiar white leathers with blue stripes (said to be inspired by both Elvis and Liberace), Knievel wore blue leathers adorned with white stripes and red stars in an apparent reference to the Union Jack.
After a bunch of support acts that included high divers and trapeze artists, Knievel took to the stage. Numerous ‘test’ run-ups and a change of bike built up the anticipation, so when Knievel finally committed to the jump, the fans were as revved up as his XR-750. Footage shows that, after being airborne for around 35 metres, Knievel landed on the thirteenth bus, then lost control, tumbling down the landing ramp with the Harley landing on top of him as he came to a halt.
Despite broken bones in his right hand, an alleged concussion and what was later diagnosed as compressed vertebrae and a fractured pelvis, Knievel climbed the landing ramp to cheers. Announcing to the crowd he’d “never ever ever” jump again drew less applause (Allegedly, Knievel changed his mind three days later and was jumping again before the end of 1975).
Knievel's failure to and the jump mattered little to spectators like John Timoney. The spectacle of the event, the charisma of Knievel and his gleaming red, white and blue Harleys were what stuck with him and would be revisited decades later.
“Evel and the bike made a huge impression on me,” Timoney said. “And I vowed that one day I would own a bike just like his.”
Sportster Base
With the abundance of available footage, photos and documentation of Knievel’s 1975 Wembley jump, making a replica of one of the bikes used should have been easy, but proved to be far from the case.
“I did actually buy an ex-Scott Pearson XR-750, but didn’t have the heart to chop up a genuine race bike, so ended up selling it on,” Timoney recalled.
Ultimately, he ended up building his Knievel tribute from two Harley Sportsters, one from 1966 and the other from 1979.
“It’s registered correctly [in the UK] as a 1966 XLCH Sportster, and the original frame is included in the sale,” Timoney said when describing the bike for UK auction house, Iconic Auctioneers, who will be putting it over the block this November.
“The XLCH donor was a basket case. It was a perfect base, as it already had numerous parts that weren’t original, so I had no qualms about chopping it up.
“The reason the frame wasn’t used, and is supplied as a spare, is because I sourced a 1979 Sportster frame. The rear geometry and castings on the rear of the frame for that year are very close to the dimensions and look of an XR-750 flat-tracker [that Knievel used].”
Timoney, who has no background in custom bike building, cut out the ’79 Sportster front end and refabricated it to match the rake and trail of an XR-750, using factory blueprints.
“Many people make XR replicas and street trackers, but nobody goes to the trouble of copying the headstock and rake of the bikes… and I’m not surprised; it’s a lot of work. But to me, that’s one of the magical ingredients that gives the bike its aggressive stance.”
Every Detail
Period-correct and very hard to acquire 35mm Ceriani GP forks were sourced, as they featured on Harley's factory flat-trackers and were retained for Knievel’s XR.
Timoney’s bike also has correct ‘mis-matched’ front and rear wheels and tyres. For the front wheel, Knievel used an XR alloy high wall/flanged rim, but the rear was always a standard Sportster rim, because it had less chance of buckling on landing. To match this, the front tyre is a 19-inch flat track racing hoop and the rear a Pirelli DT knobby. Apparently, this was chosen to give the rear tyre more grip on slick ramp surfaces and provide a little more cushion on landing.
The ’66 Sportster v-twin retains its factory 54 cubic inch (883cc) capacity and was unaltered for the rebuild. A pair of straight pipes for this have baffles that Timoney says can be removed to make the bike really roar.
Attention to detail included sourcing original XR-750 parts, like waffle grips, fork bump-stops, an engine kill switch and an ex-race XR-750 oil tank. Additionally, millimetre-perfect replicas of Knievel’s double-braced handlebars were purchased from the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas.
Stars and Stripes . . . and Pleats
To replicate the bike’s paint scheme, Timoney turned to two artists, which proved to be a challenge. “It was a stunt in itself to get artists to collaborate without their egos clashing!” Timoney laughed.
On the tank, base colours were airbrushed, with the graphics, lettering and gold leaf all hand-applied by an artist known as ‘Nefarious’. This was done as faithfully as possible to the original design of George Sediak, who customised Knievel’s bikes and helmets throughout the ’70s,.
“The tank artwork was taken from what was the originally-intended jump bike; which Knievel switched before the jump,” Timoney explained. “I believe this tank design was supposed to be the jump bike, and for me, it was the ‘luckier’ paint scheme. The actual jump bike featured a coiled ‘Snake River’ Cobra, which I didn’t think as nice a design.”
Further attention to detail included vertical pleating on the vinyl seat trim. Both the Wembley jump bikes featured this, apparently to allow Knievel to slide back and forth on the seat, while the wheelie bike had horizontal pleats, to give better ’shoe-grip’ for standing wheelies.
A Decade of Devotion
Timoney spent ten years creating this replica Knievel XR-750, but described the process as a labour of love and a tribute to the man he describes as a surrogate father.
“Many, many years of collecting parts and information went into this bike, as well as an insane amount of money to get it hand-built and worked on by the right people.”
Despite passing away almost 16 years ago, Knievel’s influence continues to this day and is evidenced in creations like the one featured here. Timoney believes the tribute bike he’s put together would meet with the great man’s approval.
This 1966 Harley-Davidson XLCH Evel Knievel tribute will go to auction with Iconic Auctioneers in the UK as part of their Motorcycle Sale on 12 November at the NEC Classic Motor Show in Birmingham.
For more details, go to iconicauctioneers
