As Jack Nicholson famously said in Easy Rider, "It's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace" except, perhaps, when what's for sale symbolizes that mentality. History's most iconic chopper is up for auction.
Peter Fonda's star spangled Harley from Easy Rider could be yours on October 18th if you outbid the swarms of ex-hippie millionaires tossing their bankrolls at this priceless Americana paragon.
Selling the famed chopper is Michael Eisenburg, who once co-owned a motorcycle-themed restaurant in LA with Easy Rider stars Fonda and Dennis Hopper. After eying it for years, Eisenberg bought the ride last year from the National Motorcycle Museum, where it was a feature display for twelve years. Prior to the museum, the hog was the pride and joy of Dan "Grizzly Adams" Haggerty, who received the chopper as a personal gift from the movie's director after filming was completed.
The Profiles in History auction house told the Associated Press it "estimates the Harley-Davidson will bring $1 million to $1.2 million at its Oct. 18 sale being held online and at its galleries in Calabasas, California." It comes with three letters of authenticity: from Fonda, Haggerty, and the National Motorcycle Museum.
Four of the bikes were made specifically for the movie, but three were stolen before the movie filming was even finished. "Which was a sign of the overwhelming power that these motorcycles had," Haggerty said. "They were never recovered."
1969's Easy Rider was about the voice of a generation at a time when young Americans were desperate to change the status quo. The movie shows counterculture bikers gripping their ape hangers with all the determination of American spirit as they trip from LA to New Orleans in search of what "used to be a helluva good country."
The central theme in Easy Rider is reclaiming the freedom that conformist America mistakenly thinks it has. In this regard, Fonda's patriotic chopper is not only the symbol of a reflective movie and an unforgettable era; it represents a lesson that 2014 could use.
