48′ Pan Named Emma

February 23, 2016

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Article By: Chris Callen

Photos By: Chris Heir

Originally Published In The June 2013 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

At first glance, there are plenty of reasons to love the old Panhead sitting in front of you here. I mean, it’s a ‘48 and that alone is awe inspiring; the very first year of their production, and on a side note, one that makes me jealous as hell. Of course I mean because I Cycle Source June ‘13 37 A missed that with my Pan by one year, but more compelling than any other feature of this old girl is the story of how it came to be. It starts like so many in our culture: a man, his son and the dream of building a classic bike. John Fudge is the name of the son and it was John that I got in touch with to get this story. Apparently, back in 1994 John put a one-hundred dollar deposit on a new Harley. As it was back then, that money put him on a two year waiting list for a bike. By 1996, the business he had started at the same time as he gave the deposit was doing well, the bike came in, and he was the proud owner of a new Heritage Softail.

Over the next few years he would rack up about ten-thousand more dollars trying to make it look like an old Panhead until the day that his father, Vincent, asked him what exactly he was trying to do with that bike. When John explained, his father just said, “Well, just sell it and we’ll build an old Panhead if that’s what you want.” The next day, Vincent bought a giant poster from Walneck’s Cycle Trader that prominently featured a ’48 Panhead on it and when it showed up, the two men began to plan. Unfortunately, shortly after that, Vincent was taken from this world and John’s dream of building a bike with his dad was gone. As life has it, time plays cruel tricks on a man’s dreams and it wasn’t long before the idea of that old Pan was lost in the shuffle of getting married, having two kids and moving into a new house. But as John unpacked his things in that new house some time later, he came across the old poster of the ’48 and unrolled it for the first time since he lost his father.

Fudge grew up four houses from the ocean in Spring Lake, NJ and was only forbidden two things as a child: a motorcycle and a dog. Both of these would have to wait until he graduated and could pay for them himself. Once he was out of school, he quickly went through the rice rockets, and even when he got up to the modern bikes, they never really did it for him. It would be a ‘45 Flatty he came across that he would learn to ride a tank shift; this would really plant the seed for old motorcycles in his head again. John started to dig through his old contacts from the antique bike world and ran across the number for Carl’s Cycle Supply in Aberdeen, South Dakota. He called them and started to tell Carl and Matt the story of his father and the old ’48. Now Carl’s is legendary for the restoration of antique and vintage motorcycles, but it just so happened that on this very day, Carl had an old ’48 basket that was eligible for a good cause. John immediately asked if he could do anything with it. Carl replied that he had done far greater with a lot less than what was in that basket.

The father and son team at Carl’s really took to John, maybe for part that his story was mirrored with some of the same passion that sees the two of them working side by side on old bikes day in and day out. In any case, John spent a lot of time in Aberdeen staying at their place. He became lifelong friends with both Carl and Matt through the process of building this bike. The Olsens put a lot of love in the old girl too, going as far as using NOS parts that they had been saving forever. Before John lost his mother, just recently, she had even gone to the two men and asked if there was anything she could buy him for his old bike as a Christmas present. They helped her to get John an old Bakelite shifter knob. When she did pass, John said there wasn’t a day that he didn’t hear from the Olsens in one way or another to check on him.

So the name John came up with for his new Pan was Emma; a combination of his 2 daughters names–Emily and Anna. On the oil fill plug there is a St. Christopher medallion that his mother brought back from a trip to Italy. The Olsens took the time to silver solder that on to the fill plug, grind, shape and parkerize it to look like the part was made that way. In essence, John has his entire family with him when he’s on that bike. He rides it all around the Jersey Shore and can’t help but think of his father every time he does. People love to gawk at the bike as it comes down the road; to them it seems like some kind of time machine. It’s a very good story of a lucky man who not only had a father who taught him the love for old bikes, but a wife in his girl Ellen who supports him in what he does, and two great kids that are in love with Emma as much as he is.