Mike Steps Up with a High-Flying Bid | American Pickers (S27) | History

Hey.
Yeah.
Hello, Dick.
How you doing, man?
Hey, how you doing, John?
Hey, what’s up?
Hey, what’s going on, man?
Life is good.
Listen, I want to stop by. We’re in your neighborhood. I need one of those 1909 Indian hubs. I got a 1909 I’m putting together. I need that hub.
Okay.
Well, I happen to be here. I’m—I’m here, man. You better stop in and see me.

Dick Shappy is a legend. He’s a master restorer of cars and motorcycles. He runs Dick Shappy’s auto sales out of Rhode Island. I have a 1909 ED motorcycle and it’s missing the rear hub. I mean, they’re extremely hard to find. Dick’s got that part.

Hey, Dick Shappy.
Dick, what’s going on?
I heard you’re selling a car out there.
A couple.
Yeah, you’ve been known to do that.
A couple available.
Oh, yeah. Look at this. Place never changes.
How are you, my friend?
Good to see you again.
How are you, man?
Good to see you.
Please, man. Good to see you, my friend.
Good to see you. Good to see you.

A lot of people out there know me. I’m Dick Shappy. I love cars, vintage automobiles. It’s a lifestyle. That’s all I want to do—restore vintage vehicles.

Why don’t I show you guys around?
Love it, man.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There’s a couple in here, man.
I love this place. I’ve only been in this room one other time, and I’ve dreamt about it ever since. Because every car in here is a dream car. Each one of them would be the crown jewel in anyone’s collection. But Dick has a room full of them.

This place is insane. Like a sea of gold.
Oh my gosh. Look at the Stutz right here. Boat tail.
Man, this is a 1921 Stutz Black Hawk.
Oh my god.
You working on this or you finish it?
The only thing I have to do—it runs great and everything—is the upholstery.
Where’d you get this at?
You know Bobby Green in California, right?
Yeah, of course.
He bought one of my Luenberg race cars and I took this on trade.
No way.
Beautiful. That’s the stuff—raw.

This is the Woodlites. They’re so War of the Worlds crazy. They’re the best. Very sexy light.
What’s the value of something like this?
This is like a $300,000 car.
Oh, I bet. Actually, more. It’s a Blackhawk. That’s a real sexy model. Very stylish. You guys do great work.

Yeah. Here’s a car I started a few years ago. This is a Crane Simplex 1918.
That is great.
This—my rever Duesenberg.
This is a 1930 V16 Cadillac model 4235 convertible coupe.
What’s a car like this worth?
I’ve got 850,000 on this car, dude. It’s a matching-number car.

Walking through here for me is like walking through the highest-end art gallery. All of these cars are works of art. And I love how Dick approaches the restorations that way. I mean, when you appreciate the history of it and the amount of detail that goes into the restoration, even the smallest thing could mean so much.

Dude, this is sick. Glenn Curtiss, man.
Yeah, from New York.
Talk about sick.
Oh my god.
Let’s hear a story on this thing here. What’s up?
These engines were in the World War I biplanes.
It’s a—uh—
Oh my gosh.
So this is like a tribute car.
Yes. That’s an OX5 motor.
OXX6.
This is great.

Curtiss is a big name in aviation. And during World War I, Curtiss made Curtiss Jennies. It was a World War I airplane. This is a fantasy car Dick Shappy’s put together. He’s taken one of the motors out of a Curtiss Jenny. He built a car around the thing. Brilliant.

What about that hub?
What about it?
I want to go see it. Where’s it at?
It’s at my home.
Oh, it’s not here.
It’s at the other location.
I’d love to see that.
Let’s do it. Absolutely love to see it.
Not sure where it is.
Yeah.
What—what are we driving, Dick?
Yeah. Let’s take a—certain not we driving.
Let’s take a ride.
Let’s take a Duesenberg.

Dude, wait ’til you see his motorcycle room, man. It’s freaking insane. He’s got Merkels in there. Got Indians. Dick Shappy’s got all kinds of great bikes. It’s good to be Dick Shappy.

Oh, yeah.
It’s my shop.
This is your shop.
So you’re looking out at this while you’re working on your bikes.
Yeah, man. Love this place.
Easy journey.
Yeah, right.
Wow.
See what I’m saying? Dick, man.
Oh, yeah.
I told you, bro.

I wish I had gotten into motorcycles earlier. I got into them 12 years ago after I bought one. I caught the disease and I turned into—you know, like you guys have.

Oh my god, this is nuts.
So, this is a seven or an eight?
This is an eight.
This one’s a seven.
And that’s that engine that I picked up from you recently.
It’s amazing, dude.
It’s so nice. Look at the throttle on this. I love this. This is before they used cables. They were always looking at different types of linkage to control the throttle.
Look at this. This is brilliant that Harley came up with this in seven.

It’s so cool walking through these projects and seeing parts and pieces that I’ve sold him over the years that are now up on wheels becoming motorcycles.

So, Jersey, here’s all the parts, man. There’s Indian—a lot of Indian parts over there. Mostly Indian.
Yeah. Let me go look at it.
Get out of there, Mike.
Yeah.
What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
You got all pieces of gold up here. All the front hubs.

Well, the beauty of it is even my guys say when we’re looking for a part, I go in the shelf and there it is. That’s why I buy things I don’t need.

Yeah, Dick. This is what I was talking about. This is a shell.
There it is.
I need the hub shell. It’s early Indian.
What do you want to give me for it?
It’s an older shell. The guts for the hub, you got to make them. They’re always worn out.
To me, three and a half.
It’s yours, and you know it’s worth every bit.
Three and a half.
Yeah. If I saw it, I’d have to pay double that.
Done. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. You mean a lot to me and you’ve been very helpful and you’ll be helpful in the future.
Dude, thank you so much, man.
I certainly appreciate you, too.

I’ll tell you what, he’s one of the only guys I know that could make the guts for that and put that to use. He’ll do it. Especially Indians. That’s why I appreciate our relationship, man. You know, that’s why I love helping you out, too. If you need a motor, I go find it for you.
Oh, you’ll find me that 13.
I’m going to show you. It’s almost done.

Dick Shappy is like a mentor to me, but more importantly, he’s my friend. We wouldn’t be who we are without each other. The community that we have built together—you know, we support each other, and that’s one part of the hobby that’s so special for us.

Show me this 13 Indian. I want to see this thing.
Okay. How many months ago did you sell that to me?
Six months ago.
Six months.
This is six months ago.
This is it. Six months ago, man. That’s what we did.
Ah, there it is.
Dude, you blow me away. You guys are so good, man.

Man, when I sold you this motor, this thing was like all rusted. It was a mess. You did such a beautiful job. You re-nickeled everything. You got the intake manifold correct.
I got to find a seat. The correct seat.
You got one.
Uh—I think Mike does.
So you need a seat.
Yeah. Yeah. So you see—oh, that seat.
You got one?
Give me a check.
I’ve got—I’ve got two of them. I need one.
I’d help you out with that.
Great.

The antique motorcycle world is a very tight-knit community, and we’re all willing to help each other. Being at the meets and meeting all these guys from a young age—it’s like if there were 900 vendors at a meet, I had 900 mentors willing to share their time with me and really helped me craft my eye to what I love today.

So here’s the biggie. The elephant in the room to me is the Merkel.
It’s unbelievable. I know the history of this bike and I’ve watched it change hands. This bike was owned by Dave Lightner. When Dave had the bike, he meticulously looked for all original-paint parts. He built the bike correctly. He’s one of the guys that’s most respected in the hobby.

And then it was owned by John Parham. John owned the National Motorcycle Museum. He was a big mentor. He was a friend. And when the National Motorcycle Museum closed, Dick bought the bike. And the fact that John Parham owned this bike means a lot to me.

Beautiful motorcycle.
What are you doing here? You’re getting it running. Is that what you’re doing?
Yeah, it should run.
Okay. Let me ask you this. How much to me?
If I were to sell this to somebody else, I got a big number on it. In fact, I think it’s already on my website for 100 and a quarter.
To you, I’m not going to do that.
Uh—I got to get 100,000. My bottom. 100.
I was going to say 110.

Here’s a beautiful piece of history. Go find another one. There isn’t another one out there as beautiful as that. There might be one or two in the world. Flying Merkel. There’s something about them. It’s not just the orange paint. Everything is just so unique about them. The full suspension—positively, man. The motors.

Dick, how much of this is original paint? Cuz I’m looking at these pinstripes here on the top tube and on the down tube. Obviously, it doesn’t match the fender.
So, this is original pinstriping.
Some of it has been repainted, but a lot of it’s original. A lot of it is original. I would say probably 75% of this paint is original.
That’s strong for a ‘19. That’s a real—
That’s a strong number for original paint.

When you look at this bike really close, you can see that some of it has been patinaed. Like the whole rear fender has been painted on this bike, but they did such a great job of knocking it down and making it match the rest of the bike.
This is reproduction.
Yes, you think so?
It’s absolutely way too perfect cuz it almost got scraped up from the pedal going.
Way, way too perfect. And I think that crank arm is reproduction. You can see.
Yeah. Versus this crank arm.

I mean, there are some things that are really nice on this bike cuz things have been touched up through the years, but it’s a sweet bike. These bikes are extremely hard to find, especially when they’re together, one piece.

So now you’ve got Dave Lightner owning this bike, John Parham owning this bike, Dick Shappy owning this bike. I want to be the next guy that owns this bike.
For you, I’ll sell it to you for 100,000.
You throw in the Indian seat and we’ll have a deal.
All right, man. I think you got something going on here, Dick.
I’m doing it. I’m doing it, Dick. I’m doing it.
Hey, thank you. I’ve always wanted one. I’ve always wanted one.
Well, you got one.
You got to—
Congratulations, brother.

You know, I told you—you know, he sells stuff. The time to buy this is when you see it, when you have the opportunity. I mean, I’ll figure out the money later. I’ll probably have to sell eight bikes to buy one bike.

George, now she’s a beauty. All of the collecting for all of these years has added up to this moment. This is my bike now. This is something I’ll have the rest of my life.

See you down the road, buddy.
Take care. God bless you, guys.