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please post up any pics of earliest VW based trikes you guys have (or can find & share) I remember seeing older Trike pics as a Kid in Late 60s and saw trikes in Biker Movies Of Mid-Late 60s But am wondering if we could pinpoint the earliest incarnations ?
I don't have any pictures but the first VW trike I remember seeing was around 1967. A bike club from a close by city came through our small town and one of the guys had a real crude one. He took the engine/trans combo from the VW and put an old Harley frame up against it. Where ever it touched he welded it. He even had an old crow bar welded on for a brace. He worked for the state highway dept. so he painted it with the yellow paint they used on the road lines with a brush. It looked like his budget must have been around $12. It was really ugly but I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.
Big Daddy Ed Roth was building them in the mid 60s in California but he wasn't the first. He was one of the first to use fiberglass bodies. The older ones were just cut off VWs with a motorcycle front end stuck on.
1969 as a freshman in high school I came upon one in a driveway being built ( instant love). It was a front engine style factory built frame. There was no bodywork and the rider sat up over the engine. It had a long springer front end on it. I wish I had a better picture for you than the one burned in my brain!