NORM GRABOWSKI’S HARLEY-DAVIDSON PANHEAD | THE TRICYCLE FOR BIG BOYS

You can never have enough Norm Grabowski! From the grainy pages of Modern Cycle magazine, ca. 1965 (a follow-up piece  published after covering Norm’s epic Corvair-powered “Six Pack” motorcycle), by way of Nostalgia on Wheels. Below is Norm on the Harley before the sidecar, and following along after you’ll see it fitted with the Steib sidecar as it appeared in Modern Cycle.

norm grabowski harley panhead

Norm Grabowski on his custom ’54 Panhead Harley with special high-torque cams on a ’38 H-D rigid frame. This was later equipped with a Steib sidecar frame adapted by Mike Parti. –pic via Irish Rich

“Norm on his red metalflaked Pan chopper with the jugs and heads painted white, at the drags. Check out the sissy bar – it’s a combination beer can holder / “church key” beer can opener….too fucking much!” 

–Irish Rich  

norm grabowski harley sidecar

Norm Grabowski is the kind of guy who goes nuts over things mechanical. If you read the Modern Cycle issue of May 1965, you’ll remember the story we did on his Six Pack, the ultra-smooth power monster consisting mainly of an Indian motorcycle frame housing a Chevrolet Corvair engine. Norm’s latest creation is certainly as far out as the last one, but at least this time he stuck mostly to motorcycle parts in creating it. Completed last Fall, the three wheeler was seen several times on television on the short lived series, My Mother The Car, in which the actor was a regular. Grabowski drove the melodramatic villain, Captain Mancini, around in the strange looking chair.  –Modern Cycle magazine, ca. 1965    

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NORM GRABOWSKI’S CUSTOM CORVAIR BIKE | SICK-AS-HELL SIX-PACK ON 2 WHEELS

norm grabowski

“Norm Grabowski”s monster– the Corvair-powered “Six Pack”. Neil East (another rodding icon), owned AutoBooks in Burbank, CA, and Colorado Carbooks here in Denver told me that Norm used to come to L.A. Roadster club meetings on the Six Pack, and he said Norm had no problem kick starting this bike, when it was time to leave. It had no electric starter!” –Irish Rich 

norm grabowski corvair motorcycle

Norm Grabowski’s epic “Six Pack” — an air-cooled, flat-six Corvair engine mounted on the frame of a ’41 Indian shaft drive with no transmission, just a clutch. Another future Kustom Kulture legend pin-striped the bike– Dean Jeffries. Irish Rich (whose website is the authority on old school builders, and is due a ton of respect for his own incredible work) saw this impressive bike himself back in ’65, and has chronicled it well. Norm actually built 2 Corvair-powered “SIx Packs” — the other mated with H-D tranny called “PP ‘n’ Vinegar.”

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The Great 1950’s T-Bucket Hot Rod Rivalry | Kookie Kar vs. The “Outhouse on Wheels”

Norm Grabowski Tony Ivo T-Bucket

Tommyy Ivo (top) and Norm Grabowski in his famous Kookie Kar square-off at the National Hot Rod Associations drag racing meet held at the old Santa Ana Drag Strip.

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The T-Bucket Hot Rod craze started back in the 1950s, and is still alive and screamin’ today.  Norm Grabowski is the undisputed Granddaddy of the 4-wheeled art form, with his original Kookie Kar being an inspiration to the legion of copycat and followers that became a national craze.  It all started back in 1952, when Grabowski, newly discharged from the service and now a fledgling actor in California, got his hands on an old 1922 Model T Touring front half and dropped a shortened model A pickup bed on the rear.  It wasn’t nearly as simple as it sounds– Grabowski painstakingly cut and recut the frame, laboring long and hard to get just the right aesthetic and stance he was looking for.  The power was supplied by a ’52 Cadillac engine with a 3-71 GMC blower, and later evolved to a ’56 Dodge engine with a Horne intake sporting a quartet of Stromberg double-barrel carbs. The steering for the beast was supplied by a Ross box from an old milk truck.  Grabowski installed it at home, then discovered that the T-Bucket steered backwards.  He hopped in the dyslexic Hot Rod and nonchalantly drove her from Sunland, CA to Valley Custom in Burbank for a fix– having to steer in the opposite direction the entire way.  Why not?

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Norm Grabowski Kookie Kar

Norm Grabowski behind the “wheel” of his famous Kookie Kar– a signature feature being the Bell three-spoke steering wheel mounted on the column which was in near upright position.

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