Today in motorcycle history, June 5, 1968

                                

  Angels from Hell is released by American International Pictures (AIP) on June 5, 1968.

 

  Directed by Bruce Kessler with a screenplay written by Jerome Wish.  It was the first film produced by Joe Solomon's Fanfare Films, a firm Solomon had created with the profits from three previous biker films.  The film was shot in beautiful Bakersfield, California with music by the legendary Peanut Butter Conspiracy*.

 

  A former motorcycle club president, Mike (Tom Stern), returns home from Vietnam to resume his life and form a new motorcycle club.  Using all his gathered experience as a war hero he tries to unite all the existing neighborhood clubs and put together a brand new, super-duper outlaw bike club.  

 

  Mike soon faces trouble when one of his club brothers murders a young woman at a "drug party" and is shot by the police.  The trouble intensifies when an all-out cop against biker war breaks out.

 

  The cast included Tom Stern (married/divorced to/from Samantha Eggar) as Mike, Ted Markland (Angels from Hell, Another 48 Hours) as Smiley,  Jack Starrett (Blazing Saddles, Born Losers, Hells Angels on Wheels) as Bingham and Arlene Martel (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Hogan's Heroes, The Monkees) as Ginger, the biker sex-kitten.  Choppers, chicks, cops and drugs.

 

*Peanut Butter Conspiracy also recorded songs for movies including: Run Angel Run, Jud, Cherry Harry and Raquel, Hell Ride, 2000 Years Later and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

                                                             

Today in motorcycle history, June 4, 1959

                               
 

 Norton's new wideline Featherbed-framed ES2 is road tested by "The Motor Cycle" on June 4, 1959 and found to have a top speed of 82mph and with a fuel consumption of 56 mpg at 60 mph.

  The ES2 Norton was first introduced in 1927.  It was a long stroke single that remained one of their most popular models due to its reliability and ease of maintenance.  Twenty years later, in 1947, the ES2's teeth-chippin' girder-style front-end was replaced by the then innovative hydraulically damped telescopic front fork and race developed rear plunger suspension.

  1959 Norton had the single downtube swing-arm frame upgraded to the Rex McCandless Featherbed frame, which featured an improved AMC (Associated Motor Cycles, founded by the Collier brothers as a parent company for the Matchless and AJS) gearbox, a revised cylinder head, crankshaft-mounted Lucas RM15 60-watt alternator with coil ignition and an 8-inch front brake.

  Norton further improved the bike in 1961 with the Slimline frame with upper frame rails narrowed and a restyled slimmer tank. 

 

  The last Norton ES2 was produced in 1964, but a Matchless-based machine with Norton badges was produced for two years before finally being discontinued.