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Roth/Himsl trike bodies.

58K views 113 replies 36 participants last post by  Richard D 
#1 · (Edited)
Who made these trike bodies ? Seems I remember them
 
#5 ·
Re: Japan scene motor bikes

No, but a buddy is on both the single seat (shown) and the two seat version too. I just happened to be on the phone with him talking about it as you bumped this thread. The body is "The Praying Mantis", and it was desinged by the Himsl brothers in the late sixties and the mold was made by Steve Archer. He says the mold is still usable, but I'll be over there on Friday and take a look.
 
#8 ·
Thank you sir! Just as I hit "send" on the last post and jumped in the shower for a few I thought someone should start a single thread for this one. I didn't want to because I thought it would look self serving, even though I wouldn't be involved in the money end of it.You mean all I have to do is think of something and it happens 'round these parts?

We have one hitch, my buddy Roy that owns these molds has a weird sort of deal with Archer's daughter that if they were ever used for something for sale that she would get part of the profits. He hasn't talked to her in the batter part of twenty years. When I hung up the phone with him he was frantically (well, as frantically as Roy does stuff at least) digging through scrap paper and old contact books for her number. He is not the type to forget a promise...

I have to run over to his place on Friday and weld up a frame for yet another trike he has a body and soon mold for, ( this one was a really neat VW based trike from the early to mid seveties... And no, it's not that ugly abortion that you see when you close your eyes and think of VW trike...) when I do I promise I will shoot some picture of the molds and the boddies has had popped out of them.
 
#9 ·
Hey gang, i just remebered some pucture I shot about a year and a half ago around his back yard. I just kinda shot a shot into one of his storage sheds and at the back you can see one of the two seat "Praying Mantis" bodies that he had popped out of that mold about five or six years ago. I dont think he would mind if I showed it here.

The other is of his Roth Cobra Trike body that is now a functional, ridable trike.

As Luck would have it I found a picture of the molds as I was loading the other two! That's them!
 

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#35 ·
Hey gang, i just remebered some pucture I shot about a year and a half ago around his back yard. I just kinda shot a shot into one of his storage sheds and at the back you can see one of the two seat "Praying Mantis" bodies that he had popped out of that mold about five or six years ago. I dont think he would mind if I showed it here.

The other is of his Roth Cobra Trike body that is now a functional, ridable trike.

As Luck would have it I found a picture of the molds as I was loading the other two! That's them!
at the very least build a cover to get those out of the elements. they've lasted this long but who knows.
 
#15 ·
Hi Scavanger, I didn't mean to jump the gun on posting this stuff as you and I had talked on P.m. the other day. The molds are definitely not for sale, but Roy did talk to me today about doing a very small number of these for sale, and they won't be too damn expensive. It will al depend on Roy at this point and his oath to the mold maker's daughter as to when this goes forward, but I will keep on top of him while he works the deal out. As he put it to me today, "You know me, I'm not a money man. I ust want to see these back on the road..."
 
#18 ·
That's the one that everybody sees when they close their eyes after someone says "VW trike". I'm not sure if that's Roth or not. The one that I'll be working on on Friday is a different deal altogther and It's really neat. It doesn't use a chunk of the VW torsion housing like that one and most do. These actually used either small coil overs or struts and radius rods. They are very cool. I'll see if I can borrow the early sevnties Chopper mag they were fetured in and scan and post.

Full disclosure guys. I am not a trike expert in any way. I am a hot rod guy who digs and dabbles with choppers. I am fairly fluant in pre unit Triumph as I own a few, but my knowledge of this little segment of this little world is limited to my association with my buddy Roy that owns these molds. i was just stoked that I could identify the molds and what they were! He was there and hung out with all these people. I really didn't know how deep he was into the trike deal until fairly recently. He tells all the stories and throws all the names and trike names so fast that my limited brain space can only keep up with maybe 30% of it. As it suits this thread I'll post more of his stories here if you want.
 
#33 ·
Blog theft. I think I could tolerate a wheezy old flathead if it came in that springer/Himsl package.

Thank you good doctor for steering this back to the way I would like to see it go. I only mentioned the VW trike I'll be working with tomorrow 'cause it sooooo very different that the ones being shown here and not at all what you think of when you say VW trike. I'll scan and post the magazine article from the seventies if Roy will let me barrow the mag, but then I'd like to be done with the VW thing here.
"Full disclosure guys. I am not a trike expert in any way. I am a hot rod guy who digs and dabbles with choppers. I am fairly fluant in pre unit Triumph as I own a few, but my knowledge of this little segment of this little world is limited to my association with my buddy Roy that owns these molds. i was just stoked that I could identify the molds and what they were! He was there and hung out with all these people. I really didn't know how deep he was into the trike deal until fairly recently. He tells all the stories and throws all the names and trike names so fast that my limited brain space can only keep up with maybe 30% of it. As it suits this thread I'll post more of his stories here if you want."
please do! this is a segment of the custom bike world thats nearly been forgotten! a stand alone thread about these cool machines would go a long way into preserving some very cool history.
a "short run" of bodies for discerning,eligible and qualified builders [like here on the JJ] would be great. Just enough to inspire some homebuilders to come up with their own creations!
my first tryke? a 74 pinto engine/trans and rear end all bolted together and framed solid. the Triumph neck and engine cradle/seat mount were then "hinged" to the lower drivetrain and two Triumph shocks provided the spring. add one very "loosy-goosy 12" over springer and that thing was a "DEATH-TRAPP"!!!!! [LOL] too much unsprung weight, rear only brakes, WAYYYYTOOO FASTTT, and absolutely NO controll on the corners! it was great fun. wont be doing that again.
I have to agree completely! I know that's what Roy is thinking with this deal. This is not a big corporate guy trying to make his next million catching the lastest fad. This guy is the real deal, and has bound himself to an agreement that if these bodies were ever commercially produced, his friend's (Steve Archer) daughter would get a cut. He told me yesterday that he would not procede with this deal at all until he can locate her and work this out.

Roy and our buddy Kurt dropped off his '23 "T" touring body yesterday which is the next car I'm going to build for him. While he was here I had him take a look at this thread and he was shocked that this many people were interested in these things. He was okay with my showing the molds so that was load off of my mind. This is gonna take some finagling, and a bit of keeping Roy on track, but I do promise to do all that I can to help make it happen in the limited amouts we have talked about.
 
#32 ·
"Full disclosure guys. I am not a trike expert in any way. I am a hot rod guy who digs and dabbles with choppers. I am fairly fluant in pre unit Triumph as I own a few, but my knowledge of this little segment of this little world is limited to my association with my buddy Roy that owns these molds. i was just stoked that I could identify the molds and what they were! He was there and hung out with all these people. I really didn't know how deep he was into the trike deal until fairly recently. He tells all the stories and throws all the names and trike names so fast that my limited brain space can only keep up with maybe 30% of it. As it suits this thread I'll post more of his stories here if you want."
please do! this is a segment of the custom bike world thats nearly been forgotten! a stand alone thread about these cool machines would go a long way into preserving some very cool history.
a "short run" of bodies for discerning,eligible and qualified builders [like here on the JJ] would be great. Just enough to inspire some homebuilders to come up with their own creations!
my first tryke? a 74 pinto engine/trans and rear end all bolted together and framed solid. the Triumph neck and engine cradle/seat mount were then "hinged" to the lower drivetrain and two Triumph shocks provided the spring. add one very "loosy-goosy 12" over springer and that thing was a "DEATH-TRAPP"!!!!! [LOL] too much unsprung weight, rear only brakes, WAYYYYTOOO FASTTT, and absolutely NO controll on the corners! it was great fun. wont be doing that again.
 
#38 ·
So does this Himsel body need that Himsel frame to work??[/QUOTE]

Pretty sure it doesn't require the Himsl frame. Next time I spend some quality time over at Roy's I'll dig a Servicar frame out and set a body on for comparison. I did notice that the one pulled from the Japanese thread that started this whole deal was on a stock Servicar set up, so I think it'll work okay.
 
#37 ·
Hey gang,
As I said, I'd post a bit about the VW trike that I welded the frame up for the other day. I'd like to kinda consider this a one and done kinda deal so that we don't flip this thread too far away from what it was intended to be. I just flat dug this trike, and being a recovering VW addict (Just earned my 20 year chip!) this is a damn temptation I don't need. I mispoke the other day when I said Roy has the molds for this one as well, he doesn't. He did find a usable body a couple of years ago in a small local private yard that had most of the frame attached, and I sat down with the articles I'll show here and filled in the missing blanks for a technical drawing. Fortunately, I'm having problems loading pictures from my personal camera this week, so you can't see the results of a couple of hours fighting his welder and wind zapping this thing up out side! I do have pictures of the body and such that will be going out to have mold pulled this week. Oh, gotta say too, I grabbed the Himsl single seat body on dropped it on the frame after the welds cooled and it looks like it'll work on this deal too! IF I do one I think that'll be the way I go...

So here it is -
 

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