Core77

Beautiful bikes from the past by O. Ray Courtney

By Rain Noe - August 13, 2010

in Object Culture

Henderson is a defunct brand of U.S.-made motorcycle that went bust around the time of the Great Depression. In 1936 designer O. Ray Courtney took a 1930 Henderson and modified it into the streamlined style you see here:

[photo credit: knucklebusterinc.com]

Little is known about Courtney, though his name does pop up again in a 1953 Popular Science article, along with photos of another motorcycle he modded in 1950--with a style evolving along with the times:

The 1936 bike is now owned (and was restored) by one Frank Westfall of Syracuse, New York. The 1950 bike, sadly, is MIA.

via knucklebuster and finkbuilt

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Editors

13 years ago

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Hey Courtney -
Thanks so much for the note! Drop us a line at blogs [at] core77.com -- maybe we can work together about publishing some of his sketches as a public archive of some of his other work.

thanks!
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Courtney Rathke

13 years ago

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Ray Courtney was my grandfather; I remember seeing the bikes pictured above (from the Popular Science article) in his machine shop near Pontiac MI, when I was a child in the late 1960s. He worked for General Motors/Oldsmobile for many years and upon his death in 1984, we found old sketches of other ideas he had--including one for what would have been a jetski, had he followed through on it. Wonderful man and dearly missed.
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themark

14 years ago

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Apparently Westfall owns both of them, but the second bike has not been restored yet. I have seen a picture of him riding it in a partially disassembled state. Still runs!
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Shamima Sultana

14 years ago

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its very innovative...
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