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We all like to think our own GoldWing is special, i.e. well kept, tastefully accessorised and of course well ridden.  Most GoldWings  are reasonably well kept and tastefully accessorised and many are well ridden.  But a few of them, just a few, are exceptional.

Bill Squires’s GL1800 is an exceptional bike for all sorts of reasons.  It’s a real eye-catcher.

This bike is the one they all pick out as special from a line of GoldWings, whether they are Wingers themselves or members of the public.

Partly it’s because Bill’s bike is always immaculately clean and well polished, but it’s also exceptionally well embellished with shiny bits and it’s got all sorts of gadgets, some of which are one-off, made by Bill himself.  Above all it’s stunningly eye-catching.  Wherever awards or prizes are being offered, Bill’s bike is at the very least in with a chance.

It has won many, many prizes except, until last year, either Best Bike or Best Lit Bike at the GoldWing Light Parade in Blackpool, prizes which had always somehow passed him by.  Bill became resigned to this and with typical modesty put it down to poor quality judges.

Maybe he was right, the Judges had invariably been non-Wingers and/or non-professionals (in the motorcycling sense) and had often been some local dignitary or other who wouldn’t spot the subtlety and skill which had gone into Bill’s Bike.  In 2009 for the first time the Judges were motorcycling professionals and Bill did win; his bike got both the Best Lit Bike and, the following afternoon, Best GL1800 as well.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but to most people’s eye Bill’s GL1800 is a truly beautiful bike – and a fine testimony to Bill’s exceptional skill and diligence in embellishing and maintaining his GoldWing in its exceptional condition.

The overall visual impact of the bike is stunning and it has such an enormous number and variety of special additions and adaptations that it takes quite a lot of careful observation to appreciate their scope and the attention to detail which has gone into their design and, in many cases, their one-off manufacture.

Honda is generally thought to have done quite a decent job designing and building the GL1800 as a grand touring motorcycle but it was quite a leap in style from it’s predecessor GoldWing, the GL1500, and Wingers took a while to warm to it’s more streamlined and curvy appearance.  Many Wingers still regard the GL1500 as the GoldWing for presence on the road; somehow it seems to have more class, more in the way of magnificence then its successor.

In standard form, although by no means unattractive in its own way, a GL1800 looks a bit on the plain side, or at least by the standards of Bill’s GL1500 they’re a bit plain, and that was something up with which Bill couldn’t possibly put.  If he was going to replace his GL1500 with a GL1800 it would have to transformed into a work of art too.  Not that Bill was ever into artwork on his bike; no brush or airbrush gun ever pointed itself at Bill’s plastic panels.

The Pearl White 1996 model GL1500 which Bill had before his GL1800 was also exceptional.  He had kitted out, over the five years he had it, with almost every available shiny bit on the market plus a few more shiny bits he had made himself.  And it had an amazing array of display lighting, some of which would beat in time to the music which Bill would invariable play at distinctly audible volumes while he rode it.  In this sense, but really only in this sense, Bill could be described as loud.  But not his shiny bits; those could be described as stunning, amazing, maybe even outstanding and maybe even extreme.  Even those who are averse to adding any shiny bits to a GoldWings could reasonably fail to acknowledge that as trimmed-up GoldWings go, Bill’s bike is  very impressively and somehow very tastefully done.

When Bill decided to move on to a GL1800 there was quite a queue of Wingers wanting to buy his Gl1500.  I was still riding a GL1200 at the time and I had tried to talk him into selling his GL1500 to me even prior to his decision to by a GL1800; I tried to persuade him that having perfected his GL1500 he couldn’t possibly do anything to improve it further.  It was time, I argued, for an artist of his calibre to start again with a blank canvas.  It didn’t work; Bill was firmly attached to his GL1500 at the time and underwhelmed by the recently announced GL1800.

But after the GL1800 had been out in UK for a year or so, Bill had warmed to the idea of buying one.  He had by then ridden over 75,000 miles on his GL1500 and although it was still in excellent order in all respects, Bill decided he would probably want another new GoldWing sooner or later, so he decided to buy one.

Colour was important

However there was a problem.  This was 2002 and there was no option to buy a white GL1800.

And deeply buried though it might be, so deeply in fact that Bill is regarded as a role model for male chauvinists, it emerged that he did have a feminine side and colour was very important.  Bill had by this time come to really like the pearlescent white of his GL1500, to the extent of not being willing to consider any other colour.  By one means or another Bill had to have a pearl white GL1800.

Even in the USA, where a wider choice of colours were always offered for GoldWings than in UK and Europe, white wasn’t available in 2002 nd didn’t become available as an option until the 2004 Model Year – and even then it wasn’t a pearl white, just a plain one.  And anyway Bill wanted to buy a UK bike, to have the comfort of a UK Warranty and a relationship with a UK Honda Dealer.

The very limited choice of colours for GoldWings in UK has been a recurring source of frustration to UK Wingers; not only was UK only offered three colours to the USA’s six or seven each year,  they weren’t even always nice colours.  And so it was with the first Gl1800s, because a startling new colour, Pearl Hot Rod Yellow, had been offered in the USA but was not available in UK, or at least not officially.  One or two in this colour were however imported from the States ahead of the Model’s UK official launch.

Yellow GL1800s were therefore among the first GL1800s to be seen in the flesh in UK and they had quite an impact.  There were jokes about the AA taking to using bikes again for their breakdown service because the new colour was pretty close to their bright yellow livery, but joking apart this new colour really hit the spot for some people.

One young man who had never ridden a motorcycle in his life saw a picture of a Pearl Hot Rod Yellow GL1800 in a magazine and purely on the strength of that picture decided that he wanted one.  He got lessons, passed his test and bought his dream bike.  Colin Appleyard Motorcycles of Keighley, then an official Honda UK Dealer, responded to customer demand by repainting a batch of six UK specification GL1800s in this Pearl Hot Rod Yellow colour.  One of them was bought by the young dreamer and he’s still got it.

Never again, Stuart Feeney, Appleyard’s Sales Director was subsequently heard to say.  The amount of work involved in stripping down a GL1800 so that all it’s plastic panels can be resprayed, keeping track of all the bits while the respraying was done, then re-assembling them and making sure everything still worked was enormous.  And in addition to the challenge of stripping and reassembling these complex bikes off the production line, Appleyards encountered significant difficulties getting the yellow paint finish up to the required standard.  As the man said, never, ever again.  As a customer-service response it was magnificent and all credit to Appleyards for seeing it through, but as a commercial venture it was a costly mistake.

But Bill didn’t want a GL1800 is any of the standard colours which HondaUK were offering in 2002; nor did he want a yellow one.  Bill’s GL1500 had been a pearl white bike and he had become rather stuck on the idea of pearl white.  It worked well as a backdrop for chrome and he had become known as the owner of a prize-winning white GL1500, so Bill wanted another white bike.  Undeterred by Appleyard’s bad experience repainting bikes in yellow, Bill decided to buy a standard GL1800 (it didn’t matter what colour) and repaint it in pearl white before it went on the road.

And that’s exactly what he did.  His new, blue GL1800 was delivered, unregistered, to his home in November 2002 and he set about it with gusto.  Once he decides to do something Bill doesn’t dally around.  Bill is capable of diligence and persistence to the extent of being almost a perfectionist in what he does, but he’s very good at gusto and gusto is what gets this sort of project under way.  Re-painting a GoldWing in a new colour is not for the feint-hearted, as Appleyards had discovered the hard way.  If the professionals had struggled, how on earth was Bill going to achieve it?

Fortunately, talented though he is, Bill knows his limitations.   He also happened to have, still has, a Winger friend who is an exceptionally good and exceptionally diligent spray painter.  Bill was confident of his ability to strip the bike and rebuild it and he was confident of his friend’s ability to doing the repainting to the required high standard.

So Bill went the whole hog and chose an illusion pearlescent white – a special type of finish which is basically white in colour but also reflects a different colour, in this case a hint of gold, as the sunlight catches it.  Specialist paint finishes like these require very skilled application and elaborate preparation and re-preparation between coats.  This was no garden shed repainting job; it was done to high professional standards.

Bill’s bold choice, of a completely unique colour for his GoldWing, and Dave’s skill in applying it did the trick.  No orange-peel finish this; the paint finish which was achieved was absolutely flawless and the illusion effect was stunning.

And so was Bill’s diligent approach to stripping and re-assembly.  And while the panels were off  and in capable hands, Bill passed his time making up and adding auxiliary wiring to his bike’s frame, in preparation for the display lighting he was planning to install.  Bill is an aircraft electrician by trade, so this part of the project was done to thoroughly professional standards too.

And Bill also picked up some useful sheet metalworking skills in the aircraft industry too, together with riveting, brazing and silver-soldering.  Indeed there isn’t much in the way of practical things that Bill cannot turn his hand to.  He has no difficulty designing and making mounting brackets to install lights or other equipment on his bike neatly.  He can also shape and polished stainless steel to a mirror finish to manufacture from scratch some shiny bits for his bike which no-one has because they’re one-offs.

Bill is into display lighting in a big but also a remarkably disciplined way.  “Restrained” isn’t quite the right term for it because, for example, Bill’s GL1500 had over 90 additional lights fitted to it, of which only a few were LEDs, since much that work was done before LEDs were properly available.  However Bill was always among the first to try whatever was becoming available in the way of clever gadgets.  So for example on his GL1500 he fitted 40 watt spotlights which would beat with the music.

In darkness, with them all lit up, Bill’s GL1500 was a sight to behold.  And in daylight you would hardly know his bike had any extra lights on it at all – or at least not without looking fairly closely to spot where they were tucked away.  Needless to say his Gl1800 was going to be even better since Bill could not only apply the lessons he had learned doing his previous bike but also exploit the potential which LED lighting opens up.

Wiring Techniques

The wiring loom which Bill creates for his accessories and display lighting is, as you would expect from a skilled electrician, carefully designed to cope with the job safely and reliably.  Bill helped me to install an equivalent wiring loom on my first GL1800 and I still follow the same principles in what I have done to its successor bikes.  The method is described in more detail in a  separate article in this Blog but in essence it involves using a family tree of wires, fuses, relays and switches to allow for safe and reliable control.  He also trims wires to just the right length and secures them with cable ties and heat shrink tubing to avoid the “rat’s nest” effect which is the mark of a less skillful Winger’s attempts to fit extra wiring.  Another element of doing the job right is to install service connections at suitable points, so that the loom can be disconnected easily whenever the bike needs to be dismantled again, rather than having to resort to cutting wires.

Stuffing unwanted extra lengths of wiring extra wiring away out of sight under the seat or the glovebox instead of doing this is a commonly done “in case the wire is needed later” but it’s a mistake.  Installing extra accessories and lighting properly isn’t rocket science but it does require forethought and diligence if it’s going to do the job reliably and durably, so it is necessary to extra trouble to do the job properly first time around.

Watching Bill in action is a very good way to learn how to do it and also how to avoid the pitfalls of taking short cuts or being too lazy to trim and secure the wiring correctly.  Of course even Bill doesn’t get everything right first time every time and I’ve seen him have to scratch his head for a few minutes to work out why something isn’t working quite the way he intended.  And inevitably the complexity of the extra wiring on the bike increases as time goes by, as new gadgets or lighting options are added after the initial wiring loom is fitted, so Bill’s diligence in making notes and diagrams is an important aspect of his professionalism.

More additional switches on the right

Gadgets Galore

Bill has fitted Satellite Navigation, a Garmin Street Pilot 2820, an MP3 Player which is remotely controlled from the handlebars, a CB radio, a musical horn/siren, passenger arm rests, fog lights, rider’s back rest, GPS speedo and camera locator, relocated passenger intercom lead and enough extra lights and associated additional switches to give Blackpool Illuminations a run for its money.

Yet looking at the bike in daylight there is little evidence of all these additions because they all look the part; nothing sticks out as discordant.  This is particularly true of the display lighting, which is all tucked away neatly, either behind a panel or behind a specially made shiny bracket, or inside a transparent fitting such as the headlight housing or mirror lenses.

The most conspicuous additions are on the windscreen, which is an extra tall Tulsa version.  The Swiper, an inventions of Bill’s own, clears the windscreen of raindrops.  And across the lower half of the screen an engraving of a magnificent bull elephant leading a charge which in darkness, by illumination which Bill has installed on the windscreen’s edges from below, shines out for all to see.

To allow for selective use of the wide array of display lighting the bike has been fitted with numerous extra switches, on both sides of the handlebars and also on panels which replace the dashboard air vents on both sides.  Bill does not attempt to find or operate any lighting switches while his bike is moving.

Oh, and I forgot to add, Bill’s bike is quite well ridden too – and he’s got no points on his licence either!

More Exceptional GoldWings please!

I am planning a series of Articles on Exceptional GoldWings.  So if you know of a GoldWing which is exceptional or special enough to be worthy of a feature article about it on this Blog, please let me know.  I’ve already got two more exceptional GoldWings in mind but I would like to find others.

Thank you to Bill and Barbara Squires for their cooperation and to Nigel Mackintosh for the use of his very clever picture of Bill’s Bike at the 2008 GoldWing Light Parade at Blackpool Illuminations.