Whether you’d like to jump the shark or just try and make it over 14 garbage cans, November 12 could be the first step in doing so when one of the motorcycles that was used by The Fonz on the classic TV series “Happy Days” goes up for auction.
The motorcycle, which will go up for auction at the Bonhams Classic California Sale in Los Angeles and could fetch over $90,000, is a 1949 Triumph Tropy TR5 that has been sitting in the garage of Marshall Ehlers, a motorcycle collector, since he purchased it in 1995 from famed Hollywood stuntman Bud Ekins.
Ekins had originally provided and customized the motorcycle for the show and kept it once the show ended in 1984. Considering that the bike hasn’t been ridden since then, it’s not a surprise really that the bike doesn’t run.
The Bonhams is making it clear that the bike will need an extensive amount of work if someone wants to make it into a working motorcycle, since the speedometer is broken (and subsequently the mileage unknown), the seats are sagged and the bike, itself, is rusted. Still, it is certainly a quality piece of memorabilia given that is the only one of the motorcycles that appeared on the show still in existence.
Henry Winkler, who was the famed actor behind the legendary character, couldn’t ride a motorcycle. He said that the first time he tried to ride the bike, he rammed it into a sound truck which led to the decision to have the crew pull him and the motorcycle on a board from then on it.
So start saving your pennies now if you’d like a chance to get a bit of what made the Fonz the epitome of cool. And when you get it in working order, maybe you can ride it over to the Smithsonian to visit the black leather jacket The Fonz wore that now sits in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.