There could be nothing wilder on the roads of Chicago than good ole’ Billy on his Road Dog. One that William Bill Gelbke was himself a free spirit that gave him the ersatz Wild Bill and two that the machine he manufactured was wilder than most animals . By profession he was an engineer, or for that matter, even by birth as he affixed his bicycle with a washing machine motor when he was a kid. Wild Bill eventually started his own bike shop and then created what went on to become the first motorcycle with automatic transmission. He dubbed it the Road Dog and his clear intention to manufacture it was to create the biggest motorcycle on road that people had ever seen. To his credit it well and truly was a sedate machine leaving people gasping to eventually ask questions regarding the way it was made.
Wild Bill’s enthusiasm was such that he managed to scour 20,000 miles on it in the first year. A machine that was created without any blue prints, out of the pure genius of William, it had traits that would make any engineer proud. He used the engine of a Chevrolet Nova II to power it and the rarest feature was its rear which was a modified one-ton Chevy truck differential. The bike was big enough to use four hydraulic stands to keep it stable when parked. Wild Bill died at a young age but people still remember him for his Road Dog, a creation that spoke volumes about the genius of a man the whole of Chicago adored.
[Source: Thenewcaferacersociety]
