Even though it was a Saturday morning, Nathan and I were excited to be outside of a nondescript office building in Camarillo, California. Why? Because it was the office of ADVANCED Motion Controls, a company co-founded by Daniel Schoenewald in the 80s. OK, that’s not particularly exciting – but Mr. Schoenewald has tucked away a staggering collection of motorcycles in the second floor of his office, and he opens it up to the public once a year!
Photos by yours truly and Nathan May.
When Nathan and I arrived, Daniel was unloading a couple of bikes from a trailer. One was a Ducati Desmosedici, the other was an ex-Steve McQueen Indian Scout.
Daniel told us a bit about the Indian, then gave it a kick and took it for a quick spin.
People started showing up on all kinds of machines, with a strong showing of classic Britbikes. But the variety of motorcycles was fantastic – including this BMW R1200RS with a sidecar.
There’s just one bike in the lobby of Daniel’s office – a Honda CB1100 with the Whitehouse retro kit. It looks so much better than the stock bike, I think.
Everything else is upstairs, which requires a bit of finesse with the elevator. Ducati Desmosedici, going up!
I got a little bit of time with Daniel in the morning, but as you can imagine he got swamped pretty quickly. He stayed outside showing incoming guests the McQueen Indian while Nathan and I headed inside. The bikes are organized into sections – here’s the requisite Ducati lineup.
Do you like Kawi triples? Daniel does, too.
A couple of Ayrton Senna-inspired limited edition Italians with helmets worn by the legend himself.
I saw a few friends at the event, including Arthur Coldwells of Ultimate Motorcycling and his dog Charley.
Charley took a liking to Nathan.
Arthur walked Nathan and I around and shared some of his knowledge of Daniel’s collection with us, because the latter ended up being busy greeting guests for 3 hours! Here are some of my personal favorites:
A Condor A580 customized by Von Dutch.
Arthur took great care in pointing out this pinstriping – it requires a skilled hand to lay down a line like this. But to do another one right alongside while keeping them equidistant is simply on another level.
I’ve featured a few builds from Allen Millyard over the years. He’s developed quite a name for himself by shoving unexpected motors into motorcycles – often times they are motors of his own creation,a s he likes to take two stock motors and combine them into something a bit bigger. One example is this Kawasaki H2 “1000” with a 4-cylinder two stroke motor – think the 750 with an extra cylinder that joined the party, though it’s actually with two sets of left and right cylinders that are linked with a custom crankshaft, among other things. The additional disk brake up front seems prudent.
A Norton frame stuffed with an Ariel Square Four engine. This was previously owned by Homer Knapp.
A beautiful 1930 Brough Superior, with a mural of Lawrence of Arabia and the same bike in the background.
The first-generation Suzuki Katana – this was nice to see as I had ridden the new Katana to the event. Did you catch my review of the new bike?
A modern-ish CBR with a livery inspired by Fast Freddie Spencer’s CB750F racer.
A collection like this requires heavy-duty Battery Tenders!
There’s several Bimotas, including a SB4 and a SB6-R.
My favorite is the Tesi 1D, which I used for a Guess That Bike a couple of months ago. It is the first bike that was made available for sale (#7, the first 6 were scrapped).
Speaking of “Guess That Bike” posts, I considered using this shot but there aren’t many bikes with three pipes on one side!
It is, of course, a Triumph Hurricane X-75.
Rich Oliver’s Yamaha TZ250 – note the Advanced Motion Controls logo as Daniel’s company sponsored this machine during a legendary season in the AMA 250 Championship in which Oliver not only won every race of the season…he LED EVERY LAP. The next season, the AMA got rid of the class.
The open house was scheduled to run from 9:30am to about 4pm, with some music and BBQ lunch. Unfortunately, I had to get back to LA around noon so we departed early. With that said, the cool bikes weren’t just inside Daniel’s collection – there were some choice machines that people had ridden out for the event!
I loved this Norton P11.
The owner had added some helpful advice.
Another friend I got to see today was Bobby Weindorf, the former curator/restorer at Moto Talbott. He rode down from Carmel Valley on his beautiful Guzzi V7.
This Honda Helix is ready for something, but I have no idea what.
Old and New – a Kawasaki W800 and the 60s Triumph that inspired it. (UPDATE: As Gee S reminded me in the comments, the W800 really owes its lineage to the BSA A7. Oops)
And to wrap things up, a Black Shadow that’s ready to tour. UPDATE: Somer H let me know that this bike belongs to a friend of his, and it has covered OVER 500,000 miles. Amazing.
Click here for some additional photos, and pay attention to the SoCal Norton Owners Club calendar for the next time Mr. Schoenewald opens up his collection so you can check it out for yourself!
