Wednesday, December 02, 2015

remember the publicity machine that used to make choppers? West Coast Customs? Here are excerpts from the Wikipedia article, lots of stuff I didn't know

West Coast Choppers began selling screen-printed T-shirts and stickers with the company's Iron cross/Maltese cross logo while Jesse James was finishing high school, (grad 1987)long before any actual West Coast Choppers customs had been ordered or sold.

James's website states that his great-great-grandfather was the notorious outlaw's cousin. However, the James Preservation Trust, which tracks claims of being a relative of the outlaw, says it cannot find a record of him in the family tree, and he has not provided the requested DNA sample for the Trust to review.

After several years working as a bodyguard for Danzig, Slayer, and occasionally for other bands such as Soundgarden, James opened West Coast Choppers in his mother's garage in 1992.

Even after the company did begin building custom choppers, 60% of revenue still came from sales of WCC-branded clothing, and merch. Yearly sales of approximately 12–15 motorcycles at prices of around US$150,000 each actually lost money for the company, but attracted positive attention.

At one time, there were five clothing lines, including two sold by West Coast Choppers, two at Wal-Mart, as well as high-end lines available in more expensive department stores, such as T-shirts for "$100 a pop in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and Fred Segal".

Publicizing the names of celebrity clients was a central feature of the WCC marketing strategy. The other key to this strategy was the star power of Jesse James, presented mainly through television on the Discovery Channel in the 2002–2006 series Monster Garage.

West Coast Choppers also signed a multi-year agreement with Huffy in which West Coast Choppers will design Huffy choppers, to be sold at Wal-Mart. The objective was to duplicate success of Pacific Cycles' Schwinn Sting-Ray model designed by rival Orange County Choppers (OCC).

The motorcycle made for Shaquille O'Neal was customized for the athlete's 338 lb weight and 49 in  inseam, and enormous hands, resulting in a dramatic 11.5 feet long bike with footpegs made for size 24 feet. The result was, "priceless publicity".

In 2005 James married Sandra Bullock, in April 2010 she filed for divorce after several women claimed to have had affairs with James in March, and he issued a public apology.

He was the owner of the Cisco Burger restaurant, which opened in April 2006, the 1950s style hamburger stand featured Angus beef burgers, low-fat burritos, organic vegetables, and biodegradable wrappings. It closed in late 2010.

James took over Garage Magazine in 2006, it's went out of business in summer 2014. Garage represented the best in the hot rod culture - cool cars, genuine hotrodders, great events, the race tracks and drag strips, cool fashion, great photography, wicked music (http://www.kustomink.com.au/garage.html)  https://twitter.com/thegaragemag

In 2007 Jesse James was fined $271,250 because West Coast Choppers sold more than 50 motorcycles from 1998 to 2005 that failed to comply with the air pollution limits of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). James explained that he was unaware of rule changes that required small-volume manufactures to comply with regulations.

In 2009 West Coast Choppers stopped selling motorcycle customizing parts, offering only complete bikes, or clothing and other non-bike merchandise.

Between Aug 2010 and Sept 2011 he was engaged and broken up with Kat Von Dee twice.

In October 2010, West Coast Choppers closed the shop in Long Beach.

In 2012 James engaged drag racer Alexis DeJoria, married in 2013

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Choppers
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14041593/#.Vl-p4vmrSUk

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