t’s an aggressive claim we’ve made at the Petersen Museum—that what’s happened in the motorcycle scene in the past 10 years amounts to a revolution—but there’s no denying that the custom world has been turned upside down, taking the motorcycle industry with it. Thanks to a nudge from Gordon McCall of the Quail Motorcycle Gathering, the Petersen approached me in mid-December 2017 with an idea for a “handmade motorcycle exhibit featuring LA builders.” It was a solid concept given the number of apex motorcycle customizers in the area—Shinya Kimura, Max Hazan, Ian Barry, Go Takamine, etc. The Petersen wanted an opening date of March 1, and despite that impossible timeline, when I tossed that idea to my team at the Vintagent and the Motorcycle Arts Foundation, they bit hard.
