Bill Scott: 0:00

I had it on my stuff before the factory did. They copied my pickup. Then, what was his name? Was the advertising manager at Harley Davidson was Dwayne Unkerford. He says, "Oh, I like that!" And he came out took a picture of it. He says, "Can I copy that?""I don't care." Next thing you know, they got it copyrighted. And I can't, I have to ask their permission to use it.

Heather: 0:26

Evel Knievel inspired millions of us with this courage and perseverance. We're building a museum so you can relive those memories and be reinvigorated with that spirit of bravery.

Evel: 0:39

My name is Evel Knievel. I'm a professional daredevil.

Heather: 0:43

Along the way, we meet people involved in the life, the times, and the legacy of the King of Daredevils. Here with their stories is your host, Joe Friday.

Joe P: 0:55

Hey, howdy. You remember Lathan from that last show that we did when he shared those harrowing stories of archeology and years of digging and traveling and researching, actually, all of Evel Knievel's artifacts and put together a museum along with our friend Mike Patterson. So Lathan joins us again today. Thanks Lathan.

Lathan: 1:14

Howdy Joe Friday.

Joe P: 1:16

I'd like to thank our, our last guest who was Branden Powers, that was the creator of Evel Pie and he's our new neighbor where the museum will be and he will be bringing a new pizza concept called . So it was

Lathan: 1:30

Pizza for adults.

Joe P: 1:31

Pure mayhem. It's gonna be a lot of fun if you hadn't listened to it yet. It's a lot of fun. So look it up. Since we last met on the podcast, American Pickers came out with an episode that they actually found the big sign from the real Snake River.

Lathan: 1:52

He found one of them.

Joe P: 1:53

They found it. and did you like authenticate It

Lathan: 1:57

Mike and I knew right away that it was legit. But the interesting thing about that particular sign is it's very similar to one of the others, but quite different on the border. The interesting fact is we found one photo out of a million photos that there's one picture of that particular sign and it's perfect. And we used it in Being Evel, I believe also, but. Yeah, it's legit and it's, that raised the price probably as well. So there's a part two that we did, it's We just turned in the last of the footage a couple of days ago, and Wolfe said before he left, he told me that that was probably one of his favorite experiences ever, was doing that show with us. And he said, "You guys did all that in one take." You know, we did, we did walkthroughs and walk bys and descriptions of everything, but I don't think we had to shoot it twice. Once Mike and I were just ping pong and like our brains were just going crazy. It was awesome. And Mike, Mike Wolfe knew his stuff too. I was impressed with him. He's passionate about what he does, and that's very clear. But he also obviously knows a lot about Evel and did his homework.

Joe P: 3:07

Hey, I want to introduce you to the guy that came up with the number one logo that, you know, the ubiquitous logo that we see on Harley Davidson's and Evel Knievel's things. We picked up Robbie's bike right in Chicago, Hoffman Estates, headed back to bring it back to Kansas and

Lathan: 3:27

Ran into Denny Packee and Scott Packee in Kewanee, Illinois at Reiman's Harley Davidson.

Joe P: 3:32

Yeah, we, when we left town, I think the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in an hour and we just, and of course Lathan being Lathan, you know somebody everywhere and,

Lathan: 3:45

Not by choice.

Joe P: 3:47

yeah. Right. And then you said, let's duck in Kewanee Illinois. Kewanee awesome.

Lathan: 3:53

Yeah. Those guys are really, really great friends and they carried on Roger's legacy for a long time. I know. Great hosts too. there's a lot of differing opinions on who painted the original number one logo.

Evel: 4:09

I'm going to get on that motorcycle and I'm going to show you why I wear this big red, white, and blue number one on my shoulder.

Lathan: 4:15

And it was Brown signs initially that we were told from Denny Packee. But then he remembered his friend, Mr. Scott, who came in graciously. And I mean, you remember more about it than I do, but he kind of copped to being the guy, correct?

Joe P: 4:31

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, first of all, they got us sheltered and Denny hooked us up with a cheap motel. The

Lathan: 4:41

have probably

Joe P: 4:42

The

Lathan: 4:42

have probably been frozen and disarray without the your buddy Jorge in Illinois gave us a really high quality bike cover that looks like Swiss cheese, about a hundred miles out, and we had to stop and buy duct tape at the auto parts store. Didn't protect anything. No, I offered to replace it 'cause it was completely shredded and. He didn't take me up on that one. So I sent him his shredded cover back. And then Denny showed us how to load a bike properly, which was great, and just happened to know this artist in Kewanee that came up with the iconic number one logo, you know, the number one logo on that Evel Knievel wore on his shoulder that Harley Davidson has on their t-shirts that you see on the back of a pickup truck everywhere you go. on the '70 iron head gas tanks, supposedly

Joe P: 5:45

Okay.

Lathan: 5:46

and painted in Kewanee. Help you. he goes "He'll be here in ten minutes." The guy was there in 10 minutes Hi, Lathan. How are you?

Joe P: 6:01

We were lucky enough we had everything with us and we were kind of snowed in and, and it was kind of like a snow day at school, except for it was with, you know, around other interesting people instead of Bob Barker and Vanna White. Anyways, we caught this interview with Bill Scott, which I hope you will enjoy seeing right now.

Bill Scott: 6:28

I started racing in 1954, on a Harley 165.

Lathan: 6:35

We

Bill Scott: 6:35

running scrambles, and actually When I was a sophomore in high school, I went out for track at the high school, and I didn't have the legs for the dash, but I had lungs for endurance. I should have been on the cross country or mile team because I could last.

Lathan: 7:01

could

Bill Scott: 7:02

and and

Lathan: 7:03

I

Bill Scott: 7:03

better than to try football or basketball or baseball. I was barely five feet. And our illustrious coach, which they have a gym named for, Hellman H. Brockman Gymnasium, he told me, he says,"Don't bother with sports," he says. I went in, jumped all over him because the first big track meet that we were supposed to go to I wasn't on the roster. And he had guys on there that were way slower than me. And I said, how come they're on the team and I'm not? I can outrun them practice all the time. Our practice was down around Baker Park from high school, the Kewanee High School, which at that time was over by the Dairy Queen and then you go run around Baker Park and back to the school. And I could get back there and be changed before some of the guys that he had on the team were were back home. And he says,"You're never going to be an athlete.""Forget about athletics. Focus on academics." I got so mad. I went in the locker room, changed my clothes, threw my lock and my gym suit on his desk, went out, hopped on my bike, a Harley 165 with knobby tires, and at that time we had a cinder track. Nice, well groomed cinder track out there. I start doing nice broad slides around the cinder track. He got out there."Stop! Stop! Stop!" I'd run him over. At least he thought I would, anyhow. I wanted him to think I would. I might have. But I ran maybe ten laps around there, just sliding, throwing cinders everywhere. The principal was a friend of my father, so I got off light. I figured I was going to get expelled over that. I had to go every night after practice. I had to rake down that damn track and re groom it. Do something nice for that jerky coach that I just absolutely despised. Then I went racing. He didn't like me. I didn't like the school. School didn't like me. so pfft. and I went racing. And my light weight, I was small and I had what he didn't see. What's it take to be a good athlete? You have to have good coordination. You have to have cat like reflexes, a spatial recognition, be able, timing, recognition. I had all that. That's what it takes to be an athlete. He didn't see that. And I started hauling home trophies right away. And Roger and I battled quite a lot on and on, he always had better equipment than I did. You know, just a bunch of kids. And then, when I got out of high school, I was working in a Chevy Garage. And we put together this bike. I mean, we didn't leave any detail that we could dream up untouched. Mhm. The inside of the flywheels, everything looked like jewelry. Polished smooth. The inside of the crankcase is smooth as glass. One of the local guys was in here looking over. Actually, my shop, my dad's home was next door. And local guy was looking, watching while we're working on it. He says, man, if a fly'd land in there, he'd fall down and break his leg. We had everything's smooth as glass. Andwe figured, the flywheels are turning 8, 000 RPMs and there's not much space in those crankcases. So if you get bubbles of oil in there, that's going to cause cling. So the smoother you make it, the less If it does need to be lubricated, you don't want oil on it.

Lathan: 11:42

So

Bill Scott: 11:43

So, if it didn't need to be lubricated, we buffed it up. Slick and shiny and the whole inside was a lot of work with a little Dremel grinder and a Bright Boy, Well it wasn't a Dremel. It was some earlier version, but and what they called Bright Boy pads. It's like Scotch Brites. We had everything polished, smooth. We even packed the wheel bearings with Vaseline. What's Vaseline? Petroleum jelly. Somebody said, "Well that's not going to last long." Give me one hour. Only has to last one hour. We had an old washing machine base. From the old tub washing machines, agitator type washing machines. Pulled it out of the dump somewhere. And we had a piece of plywood on it. And we mounted the transmission there with an electric motor. And we run a slurry of ATF and Bon Ami and lapped in those gears. You know how you notch gears together. You can feel them go tick tick tick as they merge.

Lathan: 13:01

Mm hmm.

Bill Scott: 13:03

Mine didn't. After we got it all lapped in so they're just meshed perfectly, we took it all apart, cleaned it, washed it, get every bit of grit out of it, went down to Peoria Bearing, down in Peoria, and we bought turbine grade bearings. They cost us way more than just over the counter bearings, like you'd put in a normal transmission. But turbine and machine tool bearings are very high precision. So we put our transmission together with a super precision bearings. Everything was lapped in. I mean, we just played with every little idea we could come up with. Daytona, this bike, when I ran Daytona in a hundred miles, I finished four miles ahead of second place. Two minutes and thirty nine seconds ahead, in a game where a couple hundredths of a second can make first four places.

Joe P: 14:14

What year was that?

Bill Scott: 14:15

Fifty nine. That was my number that year, too. Well, the first probably 10 laps or so, there was some other bikes that were competitive, but they were revving the heck out of them. And it was like a 40 mile an hour headwind coming down the beach. That was on the beach, of course. Since I was ultra lightweight, we just"swagged", just scientific wild ass guess. And we gave it a swag, guessed at the best gear ratio. I was pulling two gear teeth higher than almost anybody else out there. I don't think anybody else was in the same gear ratio. But since this was a budget motor, I didn't have the Super cams and other things that some of the other better heeled teams did. So my engine had way more torque and I was ultra lightweight. And we were afraid to gear it too low because when you have the wind behind you going down the blacktop, you're going to over rev it. And the British bikes at first were turning like 12,000 or 13,000 rpms and they all blew up. Then they got on a blacktop with the wind pushing them, they were over revving them and sucking valves up and breaking pistons and my old K. R. turning 8, 000 R. P. M. s all day long. At the end of the race we were four miles ahead. Here's a kid from nowhere, four teenagers. Well, my brother was, he wasn't a teenager. My brother was a year and a half older than me. I'd just turned 20. My cousin was a year younger than me, so he was 19, and John was a year younger. He was 18. And we put that bike together at home. Factory teams from Europe, Japan, They had Franco Farne, Ducati, national champion, European whatever champion, his name was Franco Farne, I remember, And he was, boy, he was gonna blow everything away. I don't think he finished I got drafted before the speedway opened, so I had to go defend us against Cuba. We were going to go invade Cuba. We were training. I was in California training for an invasion of Cuba. People don't know we were almost, I mean, if somebody would have sneezed wrong, we could have been in Cuba. They claimed that because of the U 2 flyovers, they knew where every missile was, all the Russian missiles. They knew exactly where they were. They had accurate maps on where they were, how to get there and everything. And there would be multiple U. S. units assigned to each missile. And our unit would be one of the groups assigned to a specific missile. When you get there, your obligation is to blow that thing up. I tell everybody that once Castro found out I was coming to get him, he sent the missiles back to Russia. We got talking after everything cooled off and they sent the missiles back to Russia. Those are nuclear missiles!

Joe P: 18:00

Good thing we didn't blow them up.

Bill Scott: 18:00

What happens when we blow this sucker up? You probably wouldn't set off the nuclear chain, but you're going to spill radiation everywhere. What's going to happen to us?

Joe P: 18:18

Then did you come home

Bill Scott: 18:19

to Illinois? Yeah, I got married. I came home and got married right away.

Lathan: 18:26

When did you get into painting? Or design work? any kind of design work? Because you said you did the first Harley Davidson

Bill Scott: 18:35

Davidson designs. At least a third of the t-shirts being sold in the Harley shops were my designs. Wow. Ron Stratman. Did you know Ron Stratman? I have to interrupt here for just a second about Ron Stratman, that's who he's referring to. Ron Stratman was a motorcycle enthusiast for his entire life and he was, by all accounts, an amazing person. In this context, what we're talking about is Ron's career as the licensee for almost all Harley Davidson gear. All of that was reviewed by Ron Stratman in order to get it produced. He would take Bill's designs among many other designs and put them on t-shirts and sell like crazy. Okay, back to Bill. I was an idea guy. And I'd get an idea and I'd do a kind of a sketch layout. I was a draftsman at Caterpillar in between other careers. And, so I could lay out and I made sketches, and, Well, I started to tell you One time, Stratman, when this tall black guy came in, wanted to sit on one of my lowriders, He sat there, kinda, rockin back and forth on it. Puts kickstand back down, walked out to his Honda, he says,"I gotta get my ass on some class." And he couldn't have been a block away and Stratman pulled up. I said, Ron, got a new idea for you. and he put the Harley oak leaf and it says, "Put your ass on some class." And that was the hottest seller that he had going to Sturgis that year. And the one that there was tee shirt. Another hot one said, "If I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand." That was my idea. A hand grenade said, Japanese motorcycle repair kit. Hand grenade. Another one had a motorcycle and looked like water with just the rear wheel sticking up, and it had Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki. In what looked like Japanese letters, you know, like chunks. And then underneath it said,"Brought to you by the same nice people that gave us Pearl Harbor." That was, well, that was in the Sixties, so it wasn't that far removed from World War ii, you know, so, and that was a good one then. Then another one that that had what looked like a Harley shovel head engine, made out of brick with a door on it, with a crescent on it. end. That said "It's built like a brick Harley." Oh Yeah, Sorry, it takes me a minute sometimes. That's the beauty of the design, when you have to Oh yeah!

Lathan: 21:58

So tell us about this. Lathan is asking about a sign. It's one of those wall-mounted signs made out of pressed metal, and it's got the stars on top, vertical stripes, and it says Harley Davidson down on the serif of the big number one.

Bill Scott: 22:17

When, I kind of sketched this out for a sign painter. I had bought a new Chevy pickup. And Harley was number one for how many years, you know. and at that time we were in tight competition with mostly British bikes. Not that much with Japanese, but there was some Japanese bikes. And so I had the, the sign painter make up a red, white, and blue number one, Which was basically like this. And then I had a third projection. It had One Stop Cycle Center. And then I had bullet points down here. Motorcycles, mini cycles, parts, insurance, financing, accessories, like that. And then on the projection back here, I had Joliet, Illinois. I had it in 3D on my pickup. I had it on my stuff before the factory did. They copied my pickup. Then what was his name? Was the advertising manager at Harley Davidson was Unkerford. Dwayne Unkerford. He says, "Oh, I like that!" And he came out took a picture of it. He says, "Can I copy that?" I don't care. Next thing you know, they got it copyrighted. And I can't, I have to ask their permission to use it. What? So no royalties, huh?

Joe P: 23:58

Do you still drive around with the number one on your truck?

Bill Scott: 24:00

Yeah, I have it, well, on the back window of my truck.

Joe P: 24:03

Oh, yeah. A

Bill Scott: 24:04

decal that I got here.

Joe P: 24:06

That you made. That you created.

Bill Scott: 24:09

Yeah. Willie G claims that it was his design, but Ron Stratman would argue that all day long because we had it in existence well before the Harley factory started using it. Then I had t shirts made up with, it looked like a necktie. that was the number one. and the knot was blue with the stars on it. And then it had a pocket drawn on it. With a number one on the pocket and a couple of the old bic pens drawn in the pocket So you you could go dressed up with your necktie and still be wearing a t shirt

Joe P: 24:59

and go on a motorcycle ride?

Lathan: 25:01

So that was the number one logo was your concept.

Bill Scott: 25:04

Yes, on my pickup. It's,

Lathan: 25:06

It's one of my favorite logos of all time. It says everything. It's so Americana, it's so Evel Knievel, it's so perfect.

Bill Scott: 25:16

Well, that was way a long time before Evel Knievel. That was when we were

Lathan: 25:22

I associate Evel Knievel and Harley Davidson and America all rolled into one beautiful star spangled package.

Bill Scott: 25:29

Yeah. well, I had a My main thrust when I had the Harley dealership in Joliet was Buy American. It's made in America. and we don't want you getting a paycheck from an American company and spending it on a Japanese company. So that was, I advertised that in my newspaper ads and everything. Especially the government employees. yeah, yeah. I used to write a newspaper column that was in the Joliet newspaper. It was Scotty Says. I had a column every Friday night of my own quips. a few times I had crossword puzzles of motorcycle stuff. And I talked about motorcycle accessories and I pointed out during the hunting season, that the Harley leathers, leather pants were perfect for going out hunting, rabbit hunting. You go tripping through the briars and brambles and the leathers, you're not going to get all chewed up by, and I sold sold leather goods to non Harley people after that.

Joe P: 27:10

You mentioned you made a

Bill Scott: 27:11

delivery for

Joe P: 27:12

Evel Knievel, is that right?

Bill Scott: 27:14

Yeah Well, I had the Harley shop in Joliet, and the factory called me, and they asked me if I had one of the red white and blue Sportsters on hand. I said yes, and they wanted to know if I'd be willing to deliver to Evel Knievel. And they would pay expenses and whatever, and give me another bike, and give me a pass on it, you know, and all that and I said sure I would, and the arrangement was that Evel was going to come down to my shop and the radio and everything in Joliet would be there too. But, he had fell down practicing up at the Stockyard Inn. So he wasn't wasn't up to coming down. He didn't really hurt himself, but you know, he'd get bruised up and all that kind of stuff.

Joe P: 28:18

Where's the Stockyard Inn?

Bill Scott: 28:19

We were supposed to make the delivery to him at the what they called the Stockyard Inn was there at the International Amphitheater, and that was right next to the Chicago Stockyards and all that stuff. We went up there and sat with him in his big camper and had a long conversation with him.

Joe P: 28:40

Oh, that's

Bill Scott: 28:40

cool. That big ol camper- like semi that he had.

Joe P: 28:48

Yeah, we've got that. It's been completely restored. It's all painted up like a motorcycle. It doesn't have decals on it. They're all hand painted. You would like it. It's a cool museum. What, what happened with your dealership, did you sell it?

Bill Scott: 29:01

I sold it. Yeah.

Joe P: 29:02

Yeah.

Bill Scott: 29:03

Well, I had the Harley dealership in Joliet for 17 years. And then the economy went sour in 1984. Well, the early 80s, you know, the inflation rate was 20. The the prime rate for financing was 20%. 20%. And there was no construction going on. The motorcycle customers are hard hat guys. They're the construction workers. Probably at least half your clientele is construction workers. And there was no construction. And so it got pretty tough to sell motorcycles. And it looked like Harley was going to go under. It really And then in, what was it, '83? When When Harley bought themselves back from AMF, and then they had couple of bad years, and uh, then it was Malcolm Forbes arranged financing for Harley Davidson to bail out. He's He's a billionaire. Well, Malcolm Forbes was a big Harley guy anyhow. He gave away Harleys to several of his friends. Liz Taylor was a friend that got a, a free Harley from him.

Joe P: 30:27

Do you still ride motorcycles?

Bill Scott: 30:29

Oh, yeah.

Joe P: 30:30

Oh good.

Bill Scott: 30:31

Yes, just I still have take it out four or five old bikes of my own.

Joe P: 30:39

How long did

Bill Scott: 30:40

you race? Uh, to 84.

Joe P: 30:46

From '59 to '84?

Bill Scott: 30:48

No, from '54 to '84. I was 71 when I took it to Daytona for the vintage races, and everybody else out there was half my age. and I got second place.

Lathan: 31:03

Nice.

Bill Scott: 31:05

We were, I was dicing it out with a guy on a Triumph. he really wanted it. And I, I thought, if we keep going like this, one of us could get hurt. And I was old enough to know that pain hurts. I'd had a few crashes. I know how it feels. Recovery can be rough. And so I thought, " I don't don't need this"." I'm just down here to have fun." And just, I wanted to run on the speedway.

Joe P: 31:37

Thank you for jumping out of bed, throwing on the number 59 hat and rushing over. And so now you know where that big number one comes from. Wasn't that an awesome story? I mean, the guy won Daytona way long ago and then later won when he was a senior. And in the interim he designed that amazing logo that you've seen in 1 million times. So especially want to thank our guest, Bill Scott from Kewanee, Illinois. What a great and unexpected thing to find a friend in Kewanee, Illinois. Right. Also want to let you know about our next guest, Mike Patterson, will be on to talk a little bit more about the museum and what's happening there with the new displays as well as the building. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Lathan.

Lathan: 32:32

We will see you all in Las Vegas soon.

Joe P: 32:36

Well, until next time buddy, stay fabulous. Adios

Lathan: 32:40

bye.

Evel: 32:41

If you wanna be in this business and you wanna be the best in the world, and you wanna wear a red, white, and blue number one on your back, you have to be a man enough to handle the consequences. I'm Evel Knievel, honey. I'm not supposed to be afraid.