CLOSE-UP : Boss Hogs
We were looking for a real motorcycle shop but all we found were places with $150 Harley beer mugs and “Hog” boxer shorts. Then we heard about a guy known as the Motorcycle Michelangelo, Billy Westbrook.
Westbrook was only 12 when a group of Harley riders, spying his little low rainbow-colored psychedelic bicycle, dared him to “chop” their bikes. The kid customizer painted them black, detailed their frames, and a career was born.
Today, 38, Westbrook owns North Hollywood-based Westbrook Originals, where he turns Harley stock into one-of-a-kind classics with an innovative sculptural look. Unlike some Harley customizers who merely bolt on ready-made aftermarket equipment, Westbrook rebuilds or redesigns everything on the bike, from seats to wheels to handlebars. In his one-man shop, he fabricates new fenders and tanks, changes the front end, paints the bike and ties it all together with hand-welded Art Deco covers.
“They’re a fast, low, stripped-down, big-motor hot rod! I don’t make Christmas trees with stuff all over em,” he says. “My bikes turn you on, to look at and to ride, not just now, but 10, 15 years from now, like Ray Charles or Patsy Cline--stuff that lasts.”
“Everyone in the country, including Harley, takes note of what he does,” says show-car painter Kit Reidel. “He’s cutting edge. He makes timeless art pieces.”
With Hollywood burning with Harley fever, Westbrook naturally has his share of star clients, including, James Caan, Mickey Rourke and Sly Stallone.
But he’s not impressed by celebrities; he much rather work for someone who’s going to take care of the bike. “This one actor left his just-painted bike out in the rain while he went on location and it ended up a pile of junk. It wasn’t worth it! It was just money! So let him go to the Harley shop and get a bolt-on!”
And he’s still not rich, partly because aftermarket motorcycle suppliers have made copies of his designs. “There’s an art to making money and there’s a talent for doing this. I want to be big time. And if I can’t? I’ll just keep making bikes.”
