TOOELE — From the time he was a little boy, Adam Griffith liked to build things. He liked to tinker around with cars and frequently went to his grandfather's RV shop and garage in Tooele. His dad had an old Bronco, and they spent a lot of weekends taking it apart and putting it back together.
He's restored old cars, including a '67 Fastback Mustang that he keeps out back. "People ask me why I don't drive it more," he said. "But I've always been more into the build."
He's never been much into motorcycles, though. Until last winter. Until he decided to build himself one. From scratch.
"I don't know why," he shrugs. "I just thought it would be fun."
It was. In fact, it was so much fun that when he finished the green "junkyard" bike with its in-line 4-cylinder motor, he decided to set his sights a bit higher, designing and building a bike with a 100-cubic-inch V-twin engine and candy-apple red finish.
The motorcycles are completely handmade. "I bought the wheels and engines. But everything else is made of flat cheap metal and pipe. You go from there and bang it into whatever shape you want."
The designs are pretty much his own, too, although he admits to looking at a few magazines for ideas. But mostly they come from his head. That's what is so much fun about it, he said. "You picture it in your head and you put it into metal."
With sleek lines and compact design, the bikes are what are known in the motorcycle world as choppers. These minimalist machines became popular after World War II when returning soldiers decided they didn't like the chunky, heavy motorcycles of their day and remembered the lighter-weight machines they had seen in Europe. They began to chop away, eliminating heavy fenders, windshields, big seats and so forth.
In 1969, when the movie "Easy Rider" came along, a lot of motorcycle aficionados wanted a bike like Peter Fonda rode, and soon choppers became a standard part of the repertoire.
Griffith's choppers have features such as an internal throttle and internal clutch. The oil tank is inside the rear fender. The gas cap sits flush with the body until you give it a twist and it pops up.
His green bike won best-of-show at the Salt Lake Autorama. He took the red one to a show in Las Vegas last month in hopes of selling it and found a lot of interest but no buyers — yet. He'd like to sell it for $25,000 to $30,000 — so that he can start building another one.
In the meantime, he's helping his cousin Chad and another guy in Tooele build bikes. And he's got three of four frames that he's done for other people who have ordered them. Those bikes are of the less-expensive variety, maybe around $8,000 for the complete thing, he said. But the engine alone on the red chopper cost $7,000. That one he bought new. He's taken apart some of the others and rebuilt old motors. "He's really a good mechanic," said Chad.
The frame is one of the most critical parts of the process, Griffith explained. "With a car, you can go get an alignment. But with a motorcycle, you only have one chance. If it's off, all you've got is junk. There's a very small margin for error."
He starts with the frame and builds a mock-up from there, adding the gas tank, engine, fenders and such. "Then we rip it down and paint it, polish it and put it back together." The red bike has 15 coats of candy-apple red paint over gold. If you look closely, you'll see some skulls and other figures hiding in the paint. A friend airbrushes those in for him.
"Adam is amazing," said his mother, Carla. "He's always had this raw talent for building." And it's one she has encouraged. "He came over and said he needed to order a taillight. I told him he didn't need to order one, he could just make it. So he did."
What's been fun, she said, is to see how many people in Tooele have heard about the choppers and have come to see them. "I came by here once, and there were about eight men all lined up and looking at it, just like they were looking at a new baby. And it's all ages — teenagers, men that are 70 years old — they all want to see it."
Griffith supports his hobby by doing paint and body work. He also works night shifts for a family construction company. And he's married and has three children. So, it's not like he can spend a lot of time building motorcycles.
Then again, it doesn't really matter to him how many he builds. "I'd like to sell some to get some money to make some more. Maybe if I sell enough, I'll be able to afford to keep one myself." It's the building that is the pleasure, though.
"The thing of it is," said his grandfather, Carl Pitt, "I don't think he ever rode a motorcycle until he built one. You tell me anybody else that's done what he's done. Not many people build them from scratch."
The finished bikes must be inspected and licensed before they are good to go. Griffith recently took the red bike out to the Salt Flats for a test run. "It'll go down the freeway just fine," he said. Choppers, of course, are not really built for long-distance travel. "They're the hot rods of the bike world. They've kind of flipped the idea of motorcycles upside down. A lot of people are getting into them."
They're just fun to ride, he said. "You're stretched out and the ride is so smooth. You can just cruise."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com