motorcycle
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December 15, 2022
Corky Coker's collection of antique motorcycles is one of the finest in the world, and it's housed inside the Coker Museum in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. Corky's collection of cars, trucks and motorcycles features a great variety of our product lines, which covers a huge span of collector vehicles. In this article, we wanted to focus specifically on motorcycles, as the Coker Museum is packed with incredible motorcycles, dating back to the 1900's. From the earliest two-wheel machines to more civilized motorcycles of the 1950s and 1960s, this collection has iconic motorcycles, such as Harley Davidson, Indian, Excelsior, Thor, and more! The collection is diverse, with a mixture of beautiful restorations, true barn finds and bikes with legitimate racing history.
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February 16, 2018For the hot rod and custom world, there are a handful of iconic shows that bring out the best this hobby and lifestyle has to offer. The Grand National Roadster Show is certainly toward the top of that list, as it features hundreds of high end hot rods, customs and more on the grounds of the Pomona Fairplex. The Grand National Roadster Show is home to several highly coveted awards, including the America's Most Beautiful Roadster award. This 9-foot trophy is a legendary piece of hot rod history and having your name etched into it is one of the highest achievements any owner or builder can reach. While the AMBR award gets a lot of attention, there are several buildings packed with awesome cars, all with unique features and histories. We always enjoy the Suede Palace, as all of the cars are either historic hot rods or historically accurate to the 1950's and 1960's. This year, the Grand National Roadster Show even had a building full of muscle cars, a new twist for the event. The muscle car
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October 24, 2016For motorcycle guys, there are a handful of events that are considered "must-see"...you have Sturgis, Daytona Beach Bike Week, Davenport and so on. We're adding another one to the list and it's not too far away from our headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's the Barber Vintage Festival, held at the magnificent Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama (near Birmingham). The 12th annual event was just a couple weeks ago, and we went down to check out the action, and of course, represent our company. We're constantly trying to broaden our product lines, and the motorcycle market is growing quickly, so setting up at the Barber Vintage Festival was an excellent opportunity for us to reach some new customers. It is certainly a fertile market for our product offering, so we're excited to attend more motorcycle events in the future, and we will definitely be back to the Barber Vintage Festival.
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December 10, 2014The hot rod and custom motorcycle scene is rapidly growing in Japan, and its popularity is clearly evident at the annual Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show. This is a one-day event that draws builders and spectators from many different countries. The United States is represented at the show, including a few of our folks from Coker Tire! This was our first time as a vendor at the show, and we had an awesome time among thousands of hot rodders and motorcycle builders. Our tires have a huge following in Japan, so we had plenty to talk about during the event. Our President, Wade Kawasaki and his wife Rose attended the event, and made lots of great contacts and saw lots of great machinery!
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November 06, 2014It's been said that car guys and girls who work in the automotive aftermarket have the best jobs in the world. And it's true! We surround ourselves with awesome people each and every day, but the SEMA Show is like sensory overload. We're shaking hands, talking business, drooling over cool cars, and having a good time doing it. Today, we had a great time covering the event, and hung out with a lot of cool people...like Rutledge Wood. Stay tuned for a full blog feature and video feature on his Plymouth station wagon, which rolls on whitewalls from Coker Tire! For now, check out today's highlights, and be sure to watch our Facebook and Instagram feed for up-to-the-minute posts!
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September 24, 2014Last year we met Scott Jones, the man behind Noise Cycles in Santa Ana, California. He uses our tires on most of his custom motorcycle builds, and he seeks inspiration for his own builds thorugh vintage racing bikes and old motorcycles in general. With that in mind, we told Scott that any time he had an excuse to be in Tennessee to stop by and see us. He did just that on his way back from the Brooklyn Invitational, a huge motorcycle show in New York. Noise built a special bike to debut at the Brooklyn show, and it was finished just in time to make the event. The bike has a no frills look, but closer inspection reveals TONS of hand made components, and one very interesting feature that involved a lot of thought and fabrication. Keep reading for more...
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May 15, 2014Our products see many applications, some of which were unintended by our product development team. One such case is our Firestone Deluxe Champion motorcycle tires, which are intended for 1930's and 1940's Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles. The tread pattern, sidewall and sizing options also offer a unique look for custom bikes, so these restoration-style tires have seen a boom in popularity over the past few years. We've seen them used on many choppers, bobbers, brat bikes and cafe racers, and they offer just the right amount of racing style, even though the tires were never intended for racing. A perfect application for these Firestone tires is this 1973 Honda CB350F Cafe Racer, built by Speed Deluxe in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. Keep reading to find out more about this nicely detailed bike.
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November 08, 2013Well, today is the final day that our Media team will be on hand for the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. So, we hit it hard today, and grabbed some great coverage for your enjoyment. We also had our American Classic bias look radial tire press conference this morning, so we had plenty of folks in and out of the booth. Tomorrow is the final day of SEMA 2013, and we'll likely begin thinking about SEMA 2014 on Monday. It's a huge event with all sort of great qualities, and we're glad to have been able to cover it with awesome pictures and videos.
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August 17, 2013[caption id="attachment_3876" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Known simply as "the Quail"[/caption] After two days strolling through the dream-scape that is Monterey weekend. Corky Coker and Wade Kawasaki know two things already, wear good shoes and stay prepared to be amazed. This is the world renowned week of priceless classic vehicles, historic races and stacks of top-shelf car auctions that culminates with the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.
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April 23, 2013Members from Hot Rod Magazine, Chattanooga Visitor Bureau, Family Events and Coker Tire Company were on hand in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee today to announce Chattanooga as a stop on the upcoming 2013 Hot Rod Power Tour. The massive car tour visited Chattanooga in 2010 bringing thousands of cars, people and revenue to the city. The 2010 visit made a good enough impression to get the encore opportunity in 2013. The event projects over 3,000 participants rolling onto the campus of Chattanooga State throughout the day, with the event hours scheduled from 12:00pm to 7:00pm. The Chattanooga festivities won't stop at 7:00pm, as there's an after-party planned at the headquarters of Coker Tire Company in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee
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January 31, 2013Winter time for us southerners is quite tough! We struggle to make it through the winter without getting cabin fever, but Southern California hot rodders can get out all year long! In fact, one of the best hot rod and customs shows in the world happens in January, so it gave us a nice break from the cold. It's called the Grand National Roadster Show, and it's a hotbed for the coolest customs, wildest hot rods and baddest gassers in the country. The best part about it? A huge percentage of the cars roll on Coker Tire products! This year, we attended the event with a camera in hand and grabbed a bunch of great photos for you guys to enjoy!
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August 07, 2012Among our fondest memories and during the most impressionable time of any gearhead's life are the teen years when cars were the coolest and the mysteries of hot rodding were just beginning to reveal themselves. Many of us had a shop class in school and piddled the hours away imagining how fast that Camaro would be if we could just afford a new set of aluminum heads all while learning to change the spark plugs in the assistant principle's Camry.
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August 06, 2012In 2010, a few fanatical antique motorcyclists made news riding their old bikes across the country in the Motorcycle Cannonball. We were lucky to have them stop overnight in Chattanooga after leaving Maggie Valley on their epic journey. Maybe they were lucky to stop here too, since as soon as the hospitality dinner was complete, one hundred classic iron horses rolled into our restoration shop for service at the SAME TIME. It really was a sight to behold.
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March 16, 2012A few weeks ago, we were approached by a major magazine publishing company to potentially borrow a motorcycle from our huge collection here at the Coker Museum. Source Interlink Media would be attending a major event, known simply as the Dealer Expo. This trade show is the premier global business venue for the powersports industry held in Indianapolis, Indiana, so our friends and Source Interlink wanted to represent a wide variety of motorcycles in its display booth. We kindly obliged and gave them our 1930 Indian Scout 101 for the weekend. A few interesting details about the bike is that it was very popular with racers, hill climbers and stunt
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February 03, 2012We've been gearing up for the Austin Hatcher Foundation's charity event called Pistons & Fenders, and just thought we'd give you a sneak peek at our museum, where the event will be held. We've been moving cars, moving motorcycles and setting up tables for the big event. For more information on the event, CLICK HERE. It all starts here tomorrow February 4th, right here at the museum, and we're pumped...check out what we've working on! [caption id="attachment_2334" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Here are some cars that might not normally fit the bill in our Museum...but they're pretty cool! Nearest is a BMW, middle car is a Jaguar and the furthest away is a Porsche."][/caption]
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January 13, 2012Now that's a cool name for an event! We're proud to be a part of Pistons & Fenders, which is a charity event, held right here Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a matter of fact, it's going to be held at the Coker Tire Museum on February 4, 2012. The event is being put on by Pandora's European Motorsports to benefit the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer. The doors open at 6pm EST, and tickets can be purchased by visiting the Austin Hatcher website....CLICK HERE. [caption id="attachment_2316" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="Click the photo to visit the Austin Hatcher Foundation website for more information about the event!"][/caption]
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November 03, 2011If you've been to our headquarters here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, then you've probably been to the museum. Inside the museum, we have a vintage airplane--a 1929 Mystic Lake to be exact. We bought it a few years ago, and hung it from the rafters. Originally, the experimental aircraft had a Henderson motorcycle engine, but it was later swapped for a 65hp Lycoming engine.
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October 31, 2011In case you haven't heard, Corky really, really likes vintage motorcycles. About a year ago he picked up an unrestored 1917 Harley Davidson with sidecar. It was basically all there but the sheetmetal on the sidecar was pretty rough so our guys, Richard Marter and Delton Scott, completely built a new sidecar body using the bones as patterns. These guys can do anything! The knucklehead sittin in the sidecar is our main man Hal Everett. He is a dang good mechanic...not to be confused though with a dang good sheet metal man...that title still rests on Delton and Richards shoulders! Maybe you saw Hal on our Barn Finds episode of Hot Rod TV recently. Hal's a mess and a fun part of HCG! The bike? It's at Dudes getting the restoration completed. It'll be Dude-ified, restored, finished and shown in 2012.