History Behind This Image

[Kynan C.]

Craig,

What is the story behind this image? I used it as one of the cover images when I first launched the forum. I found it on one of your sales brochures and scanned it, and cleaned it up in Photoshop. Must have been a fun shoot. When you featured your products on Motorcycles where they Vetter owned bikes or were they provided by the manufacture?

 

[Craig Vetter]

This picture was taken outside one of my big buildings in Rantoul, Illinois. A giant orange piece of paper was hung off the building where a smooth section of concrete allowed the bikes to be rolled in place, fanned out like this. These bikes were not mine. They belonged to local dealers who brought them to me. The way it worked was this: When a new motorcycle came out, a local dealer brought it to me. We designed the special mounting bracket needed for it, made a production jig to reproduce it, and then put a production bracket on the bike to double check the fit and finish. Then I would decide which combination of fairing colors and stripes would look best on each bike and make a Windjammer fairing with all those options.

When we were done with all this and after photographing the bike with the fairing, we would give the bike back to the dealer with all this stuff on it for free. He got the latest and greatest Vetter fairing, mounted, ready to go for nothing. He didn't have do do a thing. It was a good deal for them and and a good deal for me.

This picture was taken not long after my terrible motorcycle crash at Road Atlanta. I was very weak and I needed help to hobble over on crutches to get in place for the pictures. I was still in a lot of pain and you could see it on my face. I have misc slides of this day which show you how this setup looked. I gotta scan them for you.

Craig

 

[Kynan C.]

The orange paper is amazing, I sometimes forget there was a time before Photoshop. Please share the slides when you get some time to scan them. It would be cool to see from the production side.

Thank you for sharing your story.