Page 78 - FAST 2024 Calendar Yearbook

Right, Monica Sims with another Thunder Road built 2024 Iron & Lace Calendar bike, an all-black Sportster powered off-road scrambler dubbed “Midnight Special”.
"I think it was '91. Tom Petty shot his music video for "Into The Great Wide Open " there at my first shop. It was filmed with...," he continues, trying to remem- ber, "what's his name? That actor that's in all those...What's his name? In that music video...." I confess I've never seen it. "You never saw the video? It was pretty big. They used...what's this guy's name?...I can't believe I forgot it... 'Pi- rates of the Caribbean'...".
“Johnny Depp!” I blurt out.
"Yeah, he wanted to get Harley-Davidson," meaning the actor's character, did. Reliving the memory, Max adds, "I got to meet both of them. Tom Petty was such a cool guy."
The list of famous people Hushahn has met in the course of doing business could probably stretch from West Hollywood to the Pacific Coast Highway, not that he's all that impressed anymore. "I've seen so many celebrities...it just does- n't jump out at me as a unique experience," Hushahn admits.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Hushahn (pronounced "HOOS-hahn) came to Los Angeles in 1986. "I was still at film school at USC," he says, "just had graduated... was starting to pick up jobs here and there...was making no money." Today he points out the eclectic mix of custom bikes in his current retail store and a work-
shop in the back on Santa Monica Blvd., "A 1950s BSA being turned into a vintage flat track racer," Hushahn says. And on the right, "A custom-built Harley- Davidson Dyna Super Gide enduro" is being readied for a magazine photo shoot.
This day there are many bikes shoehorned into the front showroom at Thunder Road Motorcycles: a like-new 1972 Yamaha RT-1 360 dirt bike, an old BSA Dirt Tracker, a Blacked-out Sportster custom off-road bike, and a beautiful hand-built Zero style Springer Panhead custom that I'd be shooting for the 2224 Iron & Lace Calendar with Playboy centerfold Monica Sims.
So how did he turn to motorcycles?
"My friend Michael Eisenberg, (who was making his money in commercial real estate) who would become my business partner, thought it would be cool to have a Harley-Davidson." Although Eisenberg bought one it turns out "he was not a biker." Wanting to sell it again, Hushahn said, "Oh wow, you're gonna lose money on it."
That's how a lucrative business model was born. The pair fixed the bike up "a little bit," added a "cool paint job," a "couple chrome pieces," and...? "He did not lose money!" Hushahn says. "He actually made money! Aw, hell, that was easy! Soon, he had a "whole garage full of bikes." Advertising in "Cycle Trader" and
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