American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 170 September 2013 | Page 20

When Rolling Thunder provides body work it is all bespoke to the individual frame rather than simply an off-the-shelf piece made to fit

Rat showing why Sam Pileggi describes him as being a ‘hands-on’ kind of boss who gets involved in design projects and builds <<< came in and bought the shop from the previous

owners in 2010,” says Sam. “As a result of that Rolling Thunder was moved to Fred’s custom shop - Rat Shop. It was at this stage that we restarted the company on a different scale to better accommodate the individual customer when it comes to frame options such as rake, stretch, tire size.” red takes up the story of why he decided to take on Rolling Thunder: “Sam used to send a lot of work to me at Rat Shop; from finishing bikes to making gas tanks, all sort of things, because at that time Rolling Thunder just made frames. “When the stream of work started to really slow down I was worried that something bad was happened to Rolling Thunder. At one time he was shipping me about 70 percent of my work. I realized either I had to down-size my shop due to

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the lack of work coming from Rolling Thunder or make the step up to the next level of business, which is what I did. I bought Rolling Thunder!” That working relationship between Sam and Fred began long before either was involved with Rolling Thunder, at a time when Fred first started working on bikes, and when Sam gave Fred the nickname Rat, which he later used for his own custom shop’s name. “I’ve known Fred since my early 20s,” says Sam, “When I had a custom shop, before I joined Rolling Thunder, he used to come in and we’d let him borrow tools, and he’d run around like a rat all over the place picking tools up and then putting them back. That’s when I started calling him Rat.” That relationship between the two men was an important part of Fred taking on Rolling Thunder as he says: “When I considered buying Rolling

A complete engine and transmission package are used in the quality control process to ensure that all the fittings line up correctly before the frame is dispatched to the customer

Thunder I talked with Sam and asked him to stay with the business because I knew I couldn’t do everything myself, and I also knew he was the best man for the job.” t was the early days of custom building that both Sam and Fred were involved in prior to Rolling Thunder and Rat Shop that inspired the level of quality that both men strive to achieve with Rolling Thunder’s products. “In those days,” says Sam about when he had his own shop, “we always worked with aftermarket frames and we would have to cut and weld them to get motors to fit in them properly. Now for garage builders at home we, as a business, want to give them a product that is as near to perfect as we can get it. Sure they’ll have the odd bracket to weld in, but when they put the powertrain in it will line up, no problem. The same thing with the swingarm. The wheels are going to line up, and the pulleys are going to line up, too. That’s because we are so meticulous; everybody has their dream build, their dream motorcycle and we want to make that as easy as possible for them to build using a Rolling Thunder frame.” Catering to people’s dreams and ideas for dream builds is now a key part of Rolling Thunder’s business plan. “We build frames to ca ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????t????M?????q9????????????????????????????????????=?????????????????????????????????????????????????????M????????????????????????????????e???????Q??????????????????e?????????????????????????????]?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????e??M??????????????????????????????]??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????t???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????M???????q????????????????????????????????????Q????????????????????????????????????????????????
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