Area 51 Custom Cycles

Written by Jonathan Rennie

Appeared in The Evening Times

IT LOOKS like any other industrial estate. There's a burger van churning out rolls and sausage in front of anonymous units with rows of ordinary-looking white vans. But something isn't quite right. The bark of a Rage Against The Machine song splits the air a sign of devilish goings-on. For among the red brick buildings in South Elgin Place, Clydebank, lurks a place where normal motorbikes arrive but leave as mechanical mutations that could very well be vehicles from outer space. But this isn't a job for Mulder and Scully the truth is out there.

This is the work of Area 51 Custom Cycles, the West of Scotland's biggest custom motorcycle firm.

Here they build the sort of bikes that Hollywood stars are rushing to have made in the US. They are the sort of machines which encourage the likes of George Clooney to part with tens of thousands of dollars for unique two-wheeled creations. At Area 51 they take normal bikes, mould them, tune them up, strip them down and turn them into something you've never seen before unless you read sci-fi comics or watch the TV hit show Orange County Choppers, which has reinvigorated the motorbike market in the US.

"The only things that limit what we do are imagination and budget," said Al Reid, a ponytailed biker who turned away from the dark side (Harley-Davidson to you and me) with three friends to launch the firm. "It's a huge business in the US and there are a few who do this kind of thing in England, but nobody does it in the West of Scotland. You normally have to rely on Harley-Davidson for different bits. But people can come to us, tell us their idea, tell us their budget and we set to work. Anybody who buys our kind of bikes wants a bit of originality. The only thing that limits their choice is the cost."

Al leads us from the Frankenstein lair of the workshop into the showroom, where the most expensive creation sits. Inspired by an AC Cobra supercar, it was built for a local businessman who owns such a car and wanted a bike to match it. The price? A whopping £65,000.

Nearby sit machines that carry car engines and propel bikes that weigh only a few hundred kilos at speeds to make Lewis Hamilton wince. Other less extreme offerings, including their Millennium Captain America - an update on the stars 'n' stripes chopper bike that Peter Fonda rode in Easy Rider - sit outside. In the leather shop sit a series of bikes designed for women, which are lighter, sexier and dazzle under fluorescent lights. However, the girls' bikes are a sideline. These guys trade in bikes which are for men, not boys.

SOME young Celtic and Rangers stars have shown an interest in buying a bike, but club bosses won't allow them to in case they fall off and hurt themselves. But that hasn't stopped former Rangers players like Mark Hateley and Paul Gazza' Gascoigne buying bikes of this kind for five-figure sums.

"Footballers have shown an interest in what businesses like ours do but their clubs always take issue with it", said Colin Rutherford, another company founder. One Celtic player is supposedly speaking with his lawyer to see if he can find a loophole in his contract to drive one."

However, the men taking the biggest gamble with these bikes are the ones building them. Al, Colin, Richard Bower and Stuart Baillie have given up secure jobs in the bike trade to make it happen. The idea began during a drinking session in the pub at the end of 2006. The next day the quartet awoke with hangovers and the bones of a business. In March 2007 they went into operation.

"We went out on the drink and as well as solving the world's ills we managed to work out how we could set up in business," said Richard. "We all have the skills to take care of different jobs, so it seemed to make sense when we had a drink in us. And the name came from how we started," added Al. "We had to hide the fact from our old employers that we were working on the side so we called it Area 51."

They are less circumspect now, dressed in T-shirts and jackets with their company crest on it. They sell the clothes to the people who buy their bikes and some rallies now look like an appreciation society. A recent event in Northern Ireland was filled with Area 51 creations, with bikers dressed in bomber jackets with Area 51 logos. One wall of the showroom is decorated in photos showing scary-looking bikers with peroxide blondes with pneumatic bodies hanging over polished metalwork.

In between fixing bikes for customers, they are all tinkering with their own side projects.

RICHARD'S streetfighter - a bike stripped down to its basic parts- is the most incredible of all, although there's the odd sneer from the rest of them because this isn't a project based on American muscle it's a Japanese Suzuki. The streetfighter looks more like Robocop's MRI scan. Part of the bodywork has even been influenced by the Armadillo on the Clydeside. A series of fanned metal sheets like the roof of the Clyde Auditorium adorn the petrol tank cover. Richard is proud of the job so far and talks enthusiastically about the intricacies of the design. "Aye, but will it go around a corner?" joked Al.

The guys headed back to the workshop, turn the volume up on a heavy metal CD and set about something much more in keeping with their values a chopper painted in the colours of the Lion Rampant.