Stables for Steel Horses
by Lee Klancher
Motorbooks International
$35 (hardcover), 192 pages
Every motorcyclist has a dream garage, with a list of favorite bikes and a special space in which to park them that doesn’t take second place to family or four-wheel transportation. The dream garage might have every tool needed to repair, restore or custom build any motorcycle in existence. It could have showcases and wall spaces for rare memorabilia and racks to hold gear for any possible riding scenario. In any case, it would be unique, an extension of your own personality and passion.
Lee Klancher has found and photographed 17 very real dream garages. Some of these, like Jay Leno’s Big Dog Garage, are well known, while others, such as one Hollywood garage that includes a MTT Superbike powered by a Rolls-Royce Allison gas turbine engine and a V-Max concept bike designed by Tim Cameron and built by Christian Travert, are understandably anonymous. Regardless of whether these garages are famous or practically unheard of, publicly accessible or kept on a need-to-know basis, or whether they house the rarest bikes on the planet or just people’s favorite rides, all 17 of these are quite different in style and scope.
There are dozens of luscious machines featured in this book, but unlike so many coffee-table volumes, this one focuses on the spaces that house motorcycles and the individuals who created these mechanical refuges. There’s a bit of inspiration, no matter how modest, to be found on these 192 pages and among the 213 color photos in Kancher’s book.
