The history of the Motor Shop frame - Bill York

Lucas -

The Motor Shop of Oxnard ran from 1968 to 1978 and got Jim's Machine into the business. We had bought a single tube frame or 2 that were on the market in the early 70's (don't remember who made them) then used those as a bases to copy and made our own variation - just cause we could. Ours had a one piece top - center tube. I think the blue bike on your web page is built using one of our frames. True Radius Bending in Santa Barbara bent the pieces and a fireman named Bill Denny in Ventura built the jig and did the welding when he was off duty. He was a builder of a number of hot rod cars. From 1974 - 1976 we made less than 100 frames from my memory. Denny screwed me out of the frame jig and the last remaining frame so I never even got a bike built using one of our own frames. We never put any serial number on them. The main bike you have featured on your site is not using one of our frames cause of the back bone design.

Bill York


I want to thank Matt Olsen from Carl's Cycle Supply for putting me in touch with Bill York.