Big D Motors in Dallas

Visited my son in Dallas this weekend and stopped by Big D Motors. I am thinking about moving out there in the next couple of years and was just checking things out.
He has a nice clean showroom and answered my email saying he has parts and does service on Nortons as well.
Seems to be mostly a Triumph shop. I have never seen so many Tridents in one place. Had some nice vintage racing Triumphs as well.
Didnt get a chance to talk to anyone but looks like a straight up specialty shop.
I do have to say if anyone is in the Chicago area, check out Morries Place in Ringwood Illinois.
Many more bikes and he pretty much does it all in Vintage. Triumph, BSA, Norton and all the real old stuff as well.
Vincent, Excelsior, and a bunch of other stuff I cant remember.

Yeah that shops got some history.

20 years ago a guy was at the races riding out of their shop. I was bla blahing to the mechanic what little I knew about british bikes and said I wanted to add a british twin to my garage. He blurted out " get a Norton Commando ".

For those not familiar with Big D, there's a lot of history on their web site. Its' worth a read.

http://www.bigdcycle.com/

Ken

I raced against the Triumphs of Big D Cycle a number of times at Mid-Ohio, they are always superfast.
I spoke to Mr. Big D Cycles himself, Keith Martin last month when he came down to my pits to hang out for a bit, he is a good guy and real character.

Doug MacRae said:

I raced against the Triumphs of Big D Cycle a number of times at Mid-Ohio, they are always superfast.
I spoke to Mr. Big D Cycles himself, Keith Martin last month when he came down to my pits to hang out for a bit, he is a good guy and real character.

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Back in the day (mid '80s?), when Keith was still just an employee at Big D, he built and raced his Triumph twin with AHRMA in 750 Sportsman. The bike was always fast, but not always reliable. I was racing my Norton in the same class, and he always had a few more horsepower, but not quite as good handling. He was a better rider than I was, and I don't think I ever beat him. Later in the '90s, when I had my friend Kevin Johnson riding my bike, Keith was still building fast Triumphs, but also had someone else riding them. We had some good battles between the two bikes. It's good to hear that he is still running race bikes. Keith has a class act going on at Big D now. I particularly enjoyed all the info he posted on his site about restoring the Norton and Triumph powered streamliners. I ran into him again a few years ago at Bonneville, where he had the restored Sam Wheeler Norton streamliner on display. He is still, as you said, a real character.

Ken

I think this bike is in the Big D showroom (or was). I built this race bike for Rod Hurick in the 1980s. It won an award somewhere. It has Axtell type cam and ports, Trick Alloy engine cradle. Box swingarm. Handmade pipes. Dellorto carbs from Ron Wood. Custom rearsets. Lots of help and input from Ken Canaga. Pretty much trick everything. I used to eliminate one of the over head oil lines by drilling through the rocker spindles so oil routed through the spindles and Keith called me asking how that worked. Part of the frame doubled as an oil cooler.

jseng1 said:

I think this bike is in the Big D showroom (or was). I built this race bike for Rod Hurick in the 1980s. It won an award somewhere. It has Axtell type cam and ports, Trick Alloy engine cradle. Box swingarm. Handmade pipes. Dellorto carbs from Ron Wood. Custom rearsets. Lots of help and input from Ken Canaga. Pretty much trick everything. I used to eliminate one of the over head oil lines by drilling through the rocker spindles so oil routed through the spindles and Keith called me asking how that worked. Part of the frame doubled as an oil cooler.

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I was just there last week and dont remember seeing this bike. Maybe its in the back.
I saw some signed race bikes in there but with the wife along I didnt have as much time as I would have liked.

http://oakcliff.advocatemag.com/2015/06 ... dquarters/

[/http://oakcliff.advocatemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/07_OC_Backstory_opt_10.jpgimg]

[img][/http://oakcliff.advocatemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/07_OC_back_story_3_03-e1435256004228.jpgimg]
Big D prep .

[img][/http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/nkzpiexozmszip.jpgimg]

Theyre the Guys who used COPPERCOTE to hold the copper gaskets in Nitro & Supercharged Tripples at Bonneville .

[img]https://bigdcycle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/73-74-big-d-bonneville-bikes.jpg
[/http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xdfcOWL-wF8/U6pMjxdltaI/AAAAAAAAgUk/YZkygPh4Ir4/s1600/JACK_RECORD.pngimg]

etc

I've bought a few bikes and plenty of parts from Keith, and his sons are excellent racers (visited quite a bit with them in 2007/08 at various AHRMA tracks).

He was around the shop back in the glory days of the original Big D, and then bought the shop and has really spiffed up the operation.

Definitely fine folks.

MikeM said:

jseng1 said:

I think this bike is in the Big D showroom (or was). I built this race bike for Rod Hurick in the 1980s. It won an award somewhere. It has Axtell type cam and ports, Trick Alloy engine cradle. Box swingarm. Handmade pipes. Dellorto carbs from Ron Wood. Custom rearsets. Lots of help and input from Ken Canaga. Pretty much trick everything. I used to eliminate one of the over head oil lines by drilling through the rocker spindles so oil routed through the spindles and Keith called me asking how that worked. Part of the frame doubled as an oil cooler.

Click to expand...

I was just there last week and dont remember seeing this bike. Maybe its in the back.
I saw some signed race bikes in there but with the wife along I didnt have as much time as I would have liked.

Click to expand...

Sounds like its not there anymore, has been moved or sold. Last I heard was that someone in the shop was trying it on the track. But that was a couple years ago. I'm going on dusty memory.