Tuesday 10.30-18.00
Wednesday 10.30-18.00
Thursday 10.30-21.00
Friday 10.30-17.30
Saturday 10.30-17.30

The Chopperdome

Admiraal de Ruyterweg 346
1055 NA Amsterdam

+31 (0)20 774 3396

Above is a photo of  "Lucky 7" in it's slat flat raceing heydey 1958 shortly before its disastrous coaster brake failure and subsequent disappereance from the Bonneville race scene. That was until now. In july 2006 whilst on summer vacation, Seb Pruisscher unearthed the salt flat racer in a barn just south of Iowa. Shipped back to Europe it was restored and the brakes upgraded in the 732 workshop and now finally on show to its admirers around the globe.

The Dynoliner special, a '32 coupe from the same era which shares some extraordinary similarities with "Lucky 7". It's a small world.

Matt 7/32

One of Europe’s best custom builders is known by the name 7/32. Matt has built some of the most remarkable chopper bikes during the last years. At the moment, he is working for The Chopperdome and has started with a new project for which he uses one the original lucky 7 Basman frames. With an eye for details and many nights of research, Matt drew his “lucky 7” Salt Racer. Using tubes from the customized Basman frame, he quietly worked on his project the last couple of weeks.

Matt's story

The initial idea for this little ride was to build an aggressive looking bike using loads of Hot Rod parts and details such as Moon gas pedals, lime walls and 'I' beam forks. The first two ideas being ditched simply because they would look stupid (in the same category as fuel tanks on push bikes?), and the last proving to be very hard to come by (find a '32 'I' beam axle or similar at a decent price, then cut and machine into two fork blades, then welded into a pair of forks that might end up looking crap?). When found" Ole Lucky" had an abominable electric device strapped to it and had been finished in 'Exposed Raw Steel.

The frame (the seventh built in a series of seven "The Lucky 7") made by Basman 33 who had built it to fit typical Dutch dimensions, the average height being about 9’ 6”! After a few deft cuts and slice's with a grinder and other nefarious metal working activities resulted in the 3" down and 3" in (I really did mean 9' 6!) and one other dimension that makes no sense to any upstanding member of the Kustom fraternity which is 2" up?

That sled style gutter tube on the Basman frame was just not in keeping with the new frame shape so up it went. All the other original parts found new homes and so the building commenced. When the entire original tubes where re-arranged and stuck back together the blanks for the side panels could be made. It turned into quite a job to find a body shop able to punch out louvers in sheet steel but we managed to track down a talented young man by the name of Tristan of KARS Kustom and rod shop. He then told me the blanks I had sent were too thick and he'll knock some new ones up from scratch. What came back were the magnificent aluminium shrouds you see here. 

I've been an avid reader of HOT RODDERS JOURNAL for some years now but when I reached the centre pages of issue 32 I spied a truly eye catching "faux patina" paint job which I immediately decided was to be the colour scheme I would copy, right down to the chips and scratches. The subtle root beer over gold and cream colours arranged by the pleasing paint lines of Scott Whittakers original "Dynaliner" 1/2 car was to be the inspiration for my mock "Barn find".
Now I had to approach the Nederland’s top custom painter and ask him to recreate a paint scheme redolent of Bonneville salt flat racing and then bashing the skillfully layered coats of paint to pieces, polishing through his carefully applied numbers and letters and painting on dirt? Sam from SAMS KUSTOM PAINT showed no fear at such an unusual request and has managed to produce a truly magnificent splash of colour. You really need to see the bike up close to fully appreciate it I can guarantee you will try to brush the crap off (I know I do it every time).  The original concept for the wheels was fat, old skool and covered. Fat can only mean the 10-cm jobs from Rigida, old skool points straight to Felt Thick-bricks and covered means MOON. Attaching the rim to the HOPE hubs using Taiwan's finest spokes built a good solid wheel set. That was until the 19" Moon discs arrived. The dish on these spun alloy pieces of art is a full 2”, which meant they would not fit…DOH! 

The only solution was to move the spoke holes in the rim over to one side. This drastic cause of action meant that the once sound pair of hoops would become “chocolate teapots” but the look they gave the bike was so cool we went ahead. The original spoke holes got filled with pop-rivets to keep in with the post-war look. On the other side I wanted a more up-to-date feel so on went the latest offerings from the leaders of stopping technology HOPE's new moto V2 vented, floating rotors and 1 piece calipers, Mmmm. Unfortunately fitting these also led to the ". Do you feel lucky, punk" integrity of the wheels that has led to the withdrawal from a kustom show (I agree, if it don't go don't show). I've since found out the wheels roll fine but I just can’t get myself to pull those mighty anchors its just inviting catastrophic hub flange disaster (would you? those puppies have a considerable £/$ value!).The half covers where knocked up by the Amsterdam Aluminium Centre and after a bit of filling, drilling and bashing the wheels were finished.
The forks I knocked up for the dry build soon became the finished item after having no joy with the original idea, but they came out alright, the same with the barz. The idea was to make some pushbike clip-ons but how to get that look on pushbike forx? It struck me 'clip the bars onto the steerer  tube!  These were then fitted to the frame using Hopes headset and the whole combo receives comments such as. " Yeah, I like the bars, looks like a kids bike" which is the ultimate in congratulations on making a simple machine. These were then treated to hours of rubbing and shaping to be finally treated to a coat of "wheel silver"(no metallic paint, that was invented in the 60's and chrome just wasn't used by the serious racer due to cost and weight) then being dragged along the floor and stippled with orange and brown paint (trying to look like rust). Then the items in question were treated to loads of coats of varnish to get that old skool-yellowing look.
The drive train was only going to be the best available so a pair of PROFILE SS cranks were stripped and oiled then fitted to the frame using the clever Evolution bottom bracket. The chain disc and chain spent a few days in a salt water bath to go nice and rusty and to help in the nostalgic look I liberated the pedals from a 70's crate rip-off.  Luckily the whole build was fairly trouble free and its come out just how I wanted which only happened thanks to Scott Whittaker, R1/2, Sam, Tristan, Gabor, Black and White cat, Naughty cat and Bas.