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Gary writes "My name is Gary Kaufman. I live in Tualatin, OR and am fairly new to the Hummer business. I bought a basket in Oct of 2002. The year was 1959 and the model being a STU 165. It was from eBay and the previous owner lived in Howe OK. From the shape it was in and given my allowable time to put in on it, I elected to have someone else do the restoration. By surfing your site and any other information that I could get, I went with Mutt at the Pigstye in Wills Point, TX. This was due to what I had read about him along with phone conversations and the proximity of the two locations. This turned out to be a great choice. I feel that I had somewhat of a hand in the completion of the bike as Mutt would give me a list of items to get and I went out on the Internet and acquired them. Through this adventure I spoke to several people from all over the US and even Tano from Europe. I particularly enjoyed meeting with Lee Lange and got to know Duane Taylor very well from this whole experience. Duane has also helped me with some adjustments that I have made and will most likely be my source for the next bike that I take on. Next time I will do it myself. Getting back to the bike, we worked hard to get it in the Fort Sutter Chapter AMCA meet in June of 2003. About 3 weeks before it was supposed to be done I got on a plane and went to Texas to see the bike. Mutt even let me help on a few things. Up until this time I had only been talking to Mutt and sending email photos back and forth. To this point I had never seen the bike or him. Just in time he put the bike on Forward Air and sent it to Sacramento, CA for the meet. I picked it up and took it to Dixon, CA. I had a few things to finalize, like putting on the exhaust pipe and muffler and getting it fired up. The gang at the Fort Sutter Chapter were all great, especially Mark Milton. The meet was great. There were several fantastic looking bikes. The bike showed very well. I wasn't aware until I got there that you had to go up thru the ranks of junior then on to senior. The end result was getting awarded a Junior First with 100 points. This was beyond what Mutt and I had hoped for. Because of this now I have people wanting me to show it again. In the mean time I have put about 185 miles on the bike. Top speed of 42 MPH. It is a real head turner everywhere that I take it. I had located a NOS windshield for it and put it on a few weeks ago. I am still trying to find some saddlebags for it. It'd love to dress it out all of the way. I'm having so much fun riding it that I haven't decided if I am going to go back to Dixon or not. The Senior First would be nice. My everyday ride is a 2000 Heritage Classic. I put on about 10,000 miles a year on it. I truly love riding with my local HOG Chapter and also on trips with smaller groups of friends. They all sport a big smile when I show up with my Circus bike - the Hummer - as I call it. I am enclosing two pictures of the restored bike along with one picture of what Mutt started with. At first I only wanted to get it moving but as we went along with the project we kept pushing for perfection. At times I got antsy and wanted to bail on the whole thing. Mutt kept calming me down and stayed the full course. I am so glad he convinced me to hang in there. ……… Thanks for keeping up the website. Without you I probably wouldn't have done this." |