Looking as if it took a hard hit after a 17-school bus jump, this 1970s AMF Evel Knievel bike is gold for those of us who have started collecting vintage bicycles, even if it does need some tweaking to the front forks. This one is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in Neenah, Wisconsin and they’re asking $450. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Lothar… of the Hill People for the great tip!
I’m bummed about the front forks being bent and also that this one is almost five hours away. I guess the $450 asking price doesn’t thrill me too much either now that I think about it, but I sure like these unusual special edition kids’ bikes from the 60s and 70s. I only have two so far, the 1966 Mattel Stallion that I restored and showed here a while ago, and a really cool and weird little “Mini-Mite” bike made to look like a mini bike that I haven’t been able to find any information at all about on the internet. If any of you have seen that one, please let me know! Plus my original early 1970s “opaque blue” Schwinn Varsity that I got new as a kid.
American Machine and Foundry (AMF) is famous for a lot of things, not the least of which is owning Harley-Davidson at one time, and also for its bowling equipment. You bike fanatics may have heard of Roadmaster and certainly AMF Roadmaster, which it evolved into after AMF bought Roadmaster from Cleveland Welding Company in 1950. The company offered many bicycles for young and old until 1997 when that division was sold to Brunswick. You bowlers will certainly remember AMF Brunswick. It’s all one big happy family, eh?
I’d be afraid to sit on this original seat in case it cracked. And I don’t mean from my massive weight (40 pounds under my ideal weight for my height), but from the 50+ year-old plastic cover. My main worry with this one is the major work required to fix the bent forks. I have to wonder what the kid looks like who took the jump that bent those forks; ouch. Otherwise, it looks like it would clean up nicely, or would be a fun total restoration project. The soft parts look pretty decent. There are videos here on YouTube showing Mr. Knievel with some of the AMF bikes with his name on them, it’s pretty fun.
The engine is… uhh, actually, it’s your two legs or your kid’s two legs. We saw a really cool Evel Knievel “trike” back in 2016 here on Barn Finds, but it wasn’t cheap, and AMF offered a couple of other Evel Knievel bikes. The trouble is that I want them all, even if I can’t ride them. Are there any bike mechanics out there? If so, is it impossible to fix those bent forks, or does it look more serious than that? I may be a player for this one if it isn’t a lost cause, I promise to let you ride it when it’s done.
This is cool!!! When I saw this on Fast Finds, I figured that you would write this up Scotty. . I think this is absolutely worth saving. I’m thinking that front fork could be carefully straightened back out. But man, I can only imagine the condition of the kid who took a half gainer over the handlebars on that jump. But all the parts look like they’re there, and on a bike like this, thats important. Thank you for writing this up Scotty and once again, more memories of our childhood.
Great stuff Gilbertson. 🚲
AMF had their fingers in alot of pies.
Cabin cruisers🛥 to racquetball.
Waaaa, daddy,,oh walk it off,,waaaa, mommy, oh you poor dear, and that was that. Judging by the condition, it wasn’t ridden much before the”accident”, and certainly not after. Man, that was an unexpected U turn, as what a gift, an Evel Knievel bike, should boost the kids status 10 fold, yet, t’was not to be. That aXX over teakettle in front of everyone cooked it. I never saw’r one, and you’d think from Beer City, least one kid would have had one, but never saw one. Got to be pretty rare.
In my youthful personal experience, bike forks get bent forward from jumps and backwards from hitting something. Probably discouraged any more riding and perhaps why the bike is still around? Doesn’t look too hard to fix as long as the frame isn’t also tweaked.
I don’t think anyone buys these to ride them anymore.
You make a valid point there Jay. Perhaps the fork was bent with the assistance of a parked Oldsmobile manu years ago. ( probably an older one without the energy absorbing bumpers )
@scotty Didn’t Mattel sell that engine on your bike separately, battery powered that made a motor sound,because I had one on my bicycle in the 60’s.
You reminded me of the device we had on our bikes that was a box with a grip that replaced one of your grips on your bike’s handlebars that you could twist to make revving noises like a motorcycle. I don’t believe Evel Keneval had these branded but he did put his name and likeness on a lot of merch. It seemed like he had a new stunt for TV every couple of months they were hyping back then.
As for the bike mentioned that looks like a mini bike, I remember those too. Lots of effort back in the 70s to create things that looked like a motorcycle for the kids who couldn’t talk their parents into the real thing. BMX bikes took over shortly after that period that could actually take a beating when you crashed them jumping over stupid things
Michael, yes, sir, it was a “Mattel V-RROOM!” noise-maker, basically, powered by two D-cell batteries. I found mine on eBay still in the original box wrapped in plastic. It wasn’t cheap, unfortunately, but I’m glad I grabbed it now.
Hey Scotty, is this a red one? I only remember them in black.
Howie, it’s the black one that I put on my little chrome Mattel Stallion. I don’t know why it’s shown in red on the box, weird.
I remember those VRRROOOM kits. A lot of pre-adolescents in my region had them. Well, I was 11 years old when I saw the first one. Of course by then I was actually riding a Honda 55 Sport so sound effects were redundant. Actually I thought they were ridiculous because they had no use other than sound effects. Besides, who wanted a motorcycle that sounded like an anemic chainsaw?
This one definitely looks like something Evel Knievel would’ve tried some of his early stunts on. Having had a bicycle that experienced a similar experience, it was nearly impossible to get that front end bent back. I know that when I hand-me-downed that first bicycle (after my older bro hand-me-downed it to me) to my younger brother it was somewhat worse for wear. That front end completely snapped off when we tried to straighten it once and for all. Younger bro ended up getting a new one.
I have to say that Evel Knievel was quite a feisty individual. Some jackass reporter got in his face one time and he smoked him good. A talk-show host asked him about it and EK said (quote): “God made man, and Winchester and baseball bats made ’em all equal!” Close quote…
Hey Scotty. Did you keep the box? That alone would make a great shelf display.
Folks, don’t encourage him, just kidding, I challenge anyone to try and stump this guy. You fancy rich kids with your “V-rroom” motors, all we had were baseball cards in the spokes, and of course the noises we made imitating real ones.
I think they were called Varoom. They strapped to the down tubes and had a throttle like sound control on the handlebars.
Since I wouldn’t be riding it anyway I think the bent front end adds to real authenticity. If I owned one as a kid it would have been rode hard and done stupid stunts without regard for safety. Well maybe my Easy Rider helmet, if I intended to defy death. Life was so much different then. 10 years old when this showed up but I had already moved on to small motorcycles. Evil Knievel certainly got my attention. I never stopped riding. 52 years of Harleys and hot rods. I think I want this stupid thing! Evil K. must have bent my brain.
😆 Ha ha. It’s supposed to be Manimal. I was never very good at minimal.
Looks like somebody tried really hard to land like knievel!
Since I wouldn’t be riding it anyway I think the bent front end adds to real authenticity. If I owned one as a kid it would have been rode hard and done stupid stunts without regard for safety. Well maybe my Easy Rider helmet, if I intended to defy death. Life was so much different then. 10 years old when this showed up but I had already moved on to small motorcycles. Evil Knievel certainly got my attention. I never stopped riding. 52 years of Harleys and hot rods. (I think I want this stupid thing! )
Evil K. must have bent my brain.
Great comments, folks! At least there wasn’t a shifter on the top bar after that failed jump.
Oh brother….. I actually did that but thankfully no shifter, just the top bar, mens bike being ridden by a dumb kid whos feet couldn’t reach the ground from the seat because he was too short… Ah, forget it…. The dumb kid was me….. And man was that painful.
Childhood. When dreams were attainable with determination and not feeling limited by critics and defeatists.
As close as a bunch of us kids ever got to trying stupid tricks was when my three cousins and me set up a 25 gallon grease keg on its side on a gentle slope above the buildings at my cousins’ place. We set a plank up and over the barrel. The first thing we did was to ride slowly up the plank, then try to stay balanced as it tipped.
That was a big mistake. All (3) of us tried it and crashed; we decided to get up some speed and ride the plank up and over. Well, my cousin, Barry, rode down and up and over.
You know that bikes, especially in the early 60s, don’t have suspension. Barry completed his jump but he walked rather stiffly and painfully after he landed. There might have been a time when he contemplated taking up hairdressing.
His younger brother, Scott, took a run at it but somehow he missed the board and plowed right into the side of the keg, which rolled down the hill and into the trees across the yard. The forks of the bike looked similar to the ones on this unit. Scott managed to bite almost completely through his tongue.
Needless to say the rest of us chickened out, but there’s always that small voice inside that says, “Why didn’t you try that yourself?”
We used an old hood off a Chevy. Propped up with some dirts piles and logs. Broke the frame on my pirated together banana bike on my third jump. I also had one of those Mattel “engines” on it, when we first built it. But by 7 years old, I thought it was corny and removed it! Who knew?
The front fork on this looks to have hit something solid in front, not from a jump. A friend and I were riding our bikes when we were 12-13 and a car came down the street the wrong way. To avoid it, we both steered into the rear of a parked Datsun/Mazda/Chevette/something-small. Both of our front forks looked like this bike’s, and the bumper was vee’d into the body. We both hit the back window of the car. Like all good teenagers, we got the hell out of there, noting the strange handling of our shortened-wheelbase bikes. Nice to have spare parts in the basement, we were fixed in less than an hour. We were no worse for wear.
My Dad had to weld the neighbor kids Stingray knock-offs back together several times after our continual jumping, but my genuine Schwinn Stingray never broke!
Ahhh. God bless the 70’s. That is all.