Fonzie’s Triumph Trophy up for auction
Who says you can’t put a price on cool?
THE custom Triumph Trophy 500 ridden by the Fonz in Happy Days is being put up for auction in California along with one of the character’s leather jackets.
Both iconic items are being sold by Profiles in History, which has estimated the bike to sell for up to $150,000 and the jacket to go for as much as $50,000. The three day auction starts on September 29, with the bike and jacket going under the hammer on day two.
Steve McQueen’s stunt double in The Great Escape, Bud Ekins, supplied the bike to Happy Days after producers started looking for something cooler to replace the Harley that was originally used. What could be cooler than a Harley? A British Triumph, of course. Ekins, who was a Triumph dealer at the time, altered the bike for the show by removing the front mudguard and putting some Harley-style handlebars on.
The Triumph Trophy was so cool that not only did Steve McQueen ride one, James Dean also bought one after seeing Marlon Brando riding a Triumph Thunderbird in The Wild One. Without doubt, it's the bike that made the Fonz such a cool character, although some of the sheen rubs off when you find out that the actor who played him, Henry Winkler, couldn’t ride the machine and had to be pushed in and out of shots.
If you want to capture some cool on a Triumph but don't have a spare $100k lying around, you could always wait for the new Bonneville.
