I have known Don Nowell for ten years. I’ll never forget the first time I witnessed one of his completed custom creations. It was one of those mundane days when I ran across every franchise excuse for life from McDonalds to Winchell’s Donuts, only to have Don walk into my office with something so different, so creative, so well made that I was slack-jawed for an hour. I wondered how and why a man would painstakingly build a quarter scale custom using every ability and skill he had mustered in 50 years of hot rods and riding.
“After thirteen years of designing and working for other companies, Don said, “I needed to make my own statement, create something new with my own stamp on it. So in 1994 I arrived at the idea of making a model bike. It took thirteen months from a blank sheet of paper to the first finished example. It was debuted at the Peterson Automotive Museum.”
His designs and manufacturing skills are on a level with the famed house of Faberge. Each motorcycle is hand made to the customer’s requirements and certified to be one of a kind. Don began his long successful career with models, “There is a saying, ‘Time flies when you’re having fun!” Don said, “Fifty years have gone by for me working with my hands and building neat stuff! I started at ten years old with model airplanes, coasters, etc. Then in high school I won the Rotary Club contest in electric shop with my electric motor. Winning that award was my first taste of the satisfaction you receive when you build something exemplary.”
In this case greatness is in the details. These ultra-unique, hand-fabricated, hand-assembled, hand-painted marvels require a trained eye to appreciate the depth and dedication involved in their creation. They are not plastic models or stamped-out “collector specials” made in the thousands. They are as rare as Bugatti’s.
“Unfortunately, people are used to seeing plastic models that are glued together in a few hours and sometimes give my work a passing glance,” said Don, who has spent several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the tooling for his two-wheeled wonders.
His story of artistic achievement stretches back some decades during which Don built and raced his own hot rods, wrenched together hypo car and boat engines, restored Pebble Beach winning antiques, and built custom motorcycles as well as prototype metal and die-cast toy vehicles.
“After school I started to hang out at Bob’s Big Boy in Van Nuys during cruise nights,” Don said, “sure there was little street racing with my ’57 Bel Air. I wanted to go faster, so I started building a B/Gas ’37 Chevrolet Coupe. In ’64 I raced the gasser. I won at the drags and at the car shows as well. In December ’66 “Hot Rod” magazine featured my car. I also set a record at the time of 121.80 mph at Irwindale drag strip.”
I took a little time away from racing to work for J.B. Nethercutt at SanSylmar, restoring cars for his classic car collection. I am proud of being ableto say that the 1924 McFarlan I put together won its class at the PebbleBeach Concourse Show in 1975.”
Don incessantly sought ways of building new products and even improved tooling to make products faster and more efficiently. He used a full-sized bike to determine his dimensions, opting for a quarter-scale adaptation. After calculating the correct ratios, his next step was figuring out how to make a laced wheel. He designed and built fixtures to hold rims and hubs in place. By hand he drilled holes and laced the wheels with stainless spokes and nipples.
“Once I had accomplished building the wheels,” Don said, ” I knew I could build the rest. But I needed the correct tires to match the wheels. I chose a tread design later provided and approved by the Avon Tire Company, down to the Avon logo and arrows indicating tire direction.” He designed and fabricated his own mold for the tires, a 21-inch scaled down front and a 16-inch rear.
In ’76 I went back to engines full-time, also working on motorcycles. I started to build disc brake rotors for flat track racing bikes. In 1980 I started to build prototype and production toy trucks for Smith-Miller.”
Work on the frame came next, a long, painstaking and expensive period of R&D. It required bending the raw tubing, fabricating fixtures to hold the sections in place, milling and metering all the joints. Try welding with a magnifying glass. The body parts also required equal effort. After making a die set for the front fender, it was stamped out of sheet metal. “I finally decided to cast the gas tanks out of thin wall investment cast aluminum,” Don explained, “and then fabricated the rear fender out of one-piece aluminum using a CNC milling machine. This guaranteed a straight, parallel finish.”
The next hurdle, a big one, was the engine and transmission. Don made all the prototype components from 6061 aluminum billet utilizing his milling machine and lathe.
In ’67 I started building engines at “Bartz Engines” for “Can-Am” cars and became shop foreman,” Don said, “I decided to start my own engine shop which opened in ’69, building engines for stock cars and circle racing boats. In 1970 I received a U.S. Patent for a valve job tool called the “Qwik-Seat.”
His model engine prototypes were taken to a foundry that was able to take molds for the engine lower ends, cylinders, transmissions, and carburetors. “Then I had them cast out of aluminum, and it was a great joy to see them come out perfect,” Don added.
As with any custom bike, the customer has the choice of engine, in this case an Evo big twin or a classic Knucklehead power plant.
Take a look at the seat. It’s fashioned from soft foam rubber covered with glove leather. The tiny speedometer features the correct red tip on the indicator arm and last odometer number. The shifting levers all function and feature a ball detent on the transmission so that it clicks seemingly into gear when the shift lever is moved up or down. Don’s scale model seems more true than real. The hand levers are fitted with springs, with a piece of rubber inserted on both the clutch and brake side to simulate the real feel of their operation. The bike features a working suspension, both front and rear with 3/8-inch travel, again mimicking full-sized machines. The front end sports down tubes cut from ground stainless tubing. Don’s gone so far as to make molds for the headlight and taillight lenses, again made from plastic like the real article. Even the derby and inspection covers are separate pieces and literally bolted on. The fasteners are created from special stainless hardware. You can see them on the swingarm pivots, triple clamps, axles, and elsewhere. Some 152 individual, very tiny bolts.
Paint is of utmost importance, and Don offers a list of pearl tones including candy orange, blue, red, and black with hand rubbed custom paint available to match corporate colors or even a real bike. As for the metal finish, all are polished aluminum other than the castings, which are also polished to a spectacular shine.
“As I was doing design work full-time,” Don explained, “I would see a story or photos of high-end car models from around the world, and that planted the seed in me to do that same kind of work. With my passion for motorcycles that has lasted until this day, I decided to build 1/4-scale custom motorcycles.
As of now Don has six bike styles available:Softails, Fatboys and Choppers plus a Springer front end and three-spoke Billet wheels. He can build custom bikes to match full-sized ride or whatever a client would dream of. Each hand built custom is 24 inches long, 8 inches wide and 13 to 15 inches tall depending on the bars. The bikes weigh 12 pounds and you can check his operation at http://www.motorcyclefineart.com or call (818) 363-8564.
