Comment:

I visited Fabulous Sam’s motorcycle shop in NJ in 1975. He struck me as quite a character. His shop was closing out all the Triumph motorcycles, the manufacturer being on its last legs at the time. I asked if I could sit on one of the Triumph Tridents on the showroom floor and was told that if I dropped it, I bought it. 

Years later I bought a used Trident, but in another state.

I first met him at his used sports car lot in NJ in the early sixties. There was a huge billboard with a picture of him in his cowboy regalia standing right in the lot behind all the cars. Sam was there in the same western outfit, including two cowboy style six guns. I remember it very clearly because he showed me how the barrels of the guns were welded shut. He explained that the police permitted him to wear the guns as long as they were provably inoperable.

I was just getting started driving and I loved pre 1960 sport cars, he had a lot of them. I especially remember a silver Porche speedster. It was in great shape and he was asking $1100 for it. He had MG’s, Jag’s, Tr’s and Healy’s.

He was a good guy and he helped me, a perfect stranger, in a lot of different ways and never charged me for advice or for introducing me to parts resources or to mechanics.