A young member, Sleeper, standing at the opening to his garage in 1998. He was a kickboxing world champion and member of the Pasadena chapter. He has since retired from the Vagos.
IT WAS A DOWN TIME FOR MANY CLUBS as the annual Black Hills Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, came to a close in 1986. It was just the second year after Harley-Davidson introduced the Evolution engine to the market, and low-income club guys didn’t yet have access to the more reliable model that would change club life forever. What’s more, many bikers had lost faith in the factory. Most one-percenter clubs required their members to ride American-made motorcycles, which meant they had to ride Harley-Davidsons.
That hadn’t been much of a hardship in the years before Terry joined the Vagos; up until the mid-1960s Harley-Davidson set the world’s standard for big-displacement motorcycles. Then they started to face serious competition, first from Great Britain, then from Japan. By the early 1970s the competition surpassed Harley-Davidson.
Meanwhile Harley continued to fall behind. While the Japanese produced ever larger and better motorcycles, Harley built outdated motorcycles using old technologically, and they suffered from horrendous quality-control issues. By the mid-1970s you were as likely to see a Harley broken down on the side of the road as you were to see one being ridden.
Harley built outdated motorcycles using old technology.
For a while diehards continued to buy Harleys out of sheer force of habit, but eventually customers had their fill of the genuinely lousy motorcycles and quit buying them. The Japanese took over the motorcycle market, driving the British motorcycle industry, which relied on similar antiquated technology and had horrendous quality-control problems of its own, out of business entirely and almost drove Harley out of business.
AMF recognized Harley’s problems and kept funding the company during tough times. They even invested in the new Evolution engine, designed in conjunction with Porsche engineers. AMF recognized their lack of motorcycle marketing experience and wanted out, but supported Harley until a new deal was developed. Eventually an investment group put together by several Harley employees took the company off of AMF’s hands.
Times were hard at first—Harley’s reputation was in the toilet and it was selling a product that represented the technological state-of-the-art circa 1936. The newly independent Harley-Davidson Motor Co. almost went bankrupt several times, but for 1984 the company introduced a new engine that was infinitely more reliable than the antiquated Shovelhead it replaced. To own a Shovelhead was to tell the world that you could overhaul your engine by the side of the road in the middle of the night with nothing more than an adjustable wrench and a Zippo lighter, because sooner or later you would be doing just that. The new engine, called the Evolution, opened up Harley ownership to anyone with a pulse—just sign the papers and start making those monthly payments.
The new engine was a hit among both the public and the enthusiast press, but Harley was in such a deep hole that the success of the Evo, as it came to be known, did not guarantee the company would survive. But after struggling along for a few more years, Harley hit pay dirt. As the 1980s wound down, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with its reliable Evo engine, became the ultimate accessory for celebrities. Many of the stars who began riding Harleys could barely fill their own gas tanks, much less rebuild a V-twin engine, but with the new Evo that was skill enough to gain membership into the brotherhood of Harley-Davidson. As more and more celebrities began appearing in public aboard Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the bikes became the must-have status symbol for the yuppies of the period and sales skyrocketed. This allowed president Vaughn Beals and the company the financial freedom to run Harley-Davidson without interference from bankers. They actually had cash on hand for the first time in a decade.
The mid-1980s was a period of transition for many clubs across the nation. They had fought the wars and struggled with their choppers for decades, but it was all about to change, and it was a time to step up or be stepped on.
All this happened during a time when the rest of the motorcycle industry was still trying to recover from the recession of the early 1980s. Overall, motorcycle sales were plummeting. During this continuing motorcycle sales decline, Harley-Davidson was the only motorcycle company in the world to witness increased sales. Eventually they overtook Honda’s market share in the large-displacement motorcycle category.
The reliability of the new Evolution big twin changed the biker lifestyle for the better, at least when it came to the quality of American motorcycles, but in other ways the situation was becoming far more difficult. Police harassment was at an all-time high, and club membership faltered. The Vagos Motorcycle Club was no exception. The mid-1980s was a period of transition for many clubs across the nation. They had fought the wars and struggled with their choppers for decades, but it was all about to change, and it was a time to step up or be stepped on.
Terry was one of those rare individuals who sensed tension in his own ranks and responded. Vago charters grew thin. Lots of brothers were sequestered in the joint or sitting at home in front of television sets and not riding. Terry was the president of the San Gabriel Valley chapter at the end of September 1986, when his brother Parts called.
“I’m going to retire if we don’t do something,” he said, and hung up.
The annual officers’ meeting would be hosted by the Desert Hot Springs chapter. The Hot Springs green gang snatched a plot of desert land at the base of the little San Bernardino Mountains and lined up a series of ratty motor homes in a circle, like covered wagons, surrounding their bonfire pit. A month before the meeting, Terry rode out with a handful of brothers and a massive Vago named Lurch, who was just out of the joint, and built like Hulk Hogan.
“The farther we rolled away from town, the more nervous Lurch became,” Terry said. “When we rolled off the highway, he started to look for an escape route.” The more rural the area in which the brothers rode, the more tension filled the hot desert air.
“Lurch was sweating bullets,” Terry said, “when we rolled up to these crappy motor homes in middle of nowhere.”
Lurch thought for sure someone in the joint had ratted him out for speaking to the wrong clique of gangsters in the joint. It wasn’t until big Butch, a jailhouse brother, stepped out of one of the motor homes that the tension subsided.
“It was finally like old home week,” Terry said. “The brother had nothing to worry about.”
As September rolled toward a close, Terry, Sonny, and Jerry the Jew rode their choppers once more toward the grubby side of the desert on the north side of Interstate 10, opposite slick, upscale Palm Springs. They rode off the highway, away from the city, away from any civilization, deep into the desert where no one wanted to be for any length of time, especially in September’s blistering heat.
They pulled up to the circled tin wagons and met all the officers of their charters in the center near the fire pit. There was tension in the air as Terry confronted the three-year international president of the Vagos, Leonard Berella.
“There was no vote,” Terry said. “I told Jerry the Jew, if he runs at me, I’m going to kill him.”
Leonard, wearing leathers, stood fuming in the blistering heat surrounded by his small supporting group of members. He was just five-feet, five-inches tall, but weighed close to 300 pounds. Although he was obese, his thin beard was closely cropped, and his long, stringy black hair was tied neatly at the back of his neck. He confronted Terry, but his support group faltered, and Terry held fast. He knew some of his poor decisions were the cause of the faltering Vagos membership. Terry stepped up and was supported by the chapter leadership. Leonard left the meeting and the Vagos that afternoon.
“He fucked up big time,” Terry said, but he gave Leonard the opportunity to leave the club with his patch as a full member. “He was a good dude, just not a leader.”
When the brothers rode out of the desert sand in September of 1986, they headed down a new green road. “We would be more active and more involved,” Terry said. “We started to help the homeless in our community and run blood drives.”
“There was no vote,” Terry said. “I told Jerry the Jew, if he runs at me, I’m going to kill him.”
One of Terry’s first moves included reaching out to other clubs to resolve conflicts. “Many of the old traditional clubs faced the same obstacles we faced,” Terry said. “They were faltering, and some of the big clubs saw it as an opportunity to pounce, but I didn’t see it that way.” He stood up for some of the small historic clubs. “We needed to keep them alive.”
He ruled with an iron fist, appointing his staff without a vote.
“I needed to work with people who could work with me,” Terry said. “I was told in the early years that if I was boss, I wasn’t in the position to make everyone happy. I needed to develop a strong, functioning organization that works for the whole.”
And so his rule began.