I found these 2 GT's on the side of the road during a council cleanup



The black one with 14 inch wheels & no pedals has the a SN ZH3875517 , so I'm guessing it's an 1987 model , the stickers on it look really gay , I might remove them + the made in Taiwan stickers & fit some chrome Santa Ana stickers to it. I adjusted the brakes & put some new tubes & air in the tires & it's a fun thing to ride around on.



Never seen a scooter like this in Oz.

As for the larger 26 inch wheel chrome GT , it seems a bit older with some surface rust on it.
SN 02 1754 on the inside rear drive dropout ,
no idea what year it is & it hasn't got GT stamped
into the rear end of the top tube.



I like chrome bikes so I will probably clean it up some more & turn it into a rider , I put some new tires & tubs on to it & it's looking better already.



I got a set of single pinch flight cranks (I hope they will clear the frame) & a 39T bubble font sprocket for it , just need to find a screw on 19T for the rear , some grips + a few other bits & I'll be set to go.
Cutting some extra thread into the supercross Bottema's so they will neatly fit in a 4 inch headset seems to be the only major obstacle , still tossing up wether to fit front brakes to the bike or not.

Part suggestions or ID help on the chrome GT most appreciated.

JB

holly crap, looks like a 1980 or 1981 gt with bottema 26" forks. worth a lot of money for free on the side of the road, if it's not a hoax. I always figured I could go take photos of my rare stuff and say I found it. no, just kidding, nice score! I really did not know bottema made 26" forks.

They are the reproduction Supercross "Bottema" forks (not sure how many of them were made but they seem fairly rare)
I've have a picture posted a few times on this board with the OM on a 24/26 Quadzilla circa 1980 with original 26 inch Bottema's, from an old Action Now magazine, but I don't think Jeff made that many 26inch forks bitd.



The real story behind how I got the parts (frame & fork mainly) for this GT cruiser build took about 18 months to land here , all the other parts are new/used stuff we've had since 1981 & would take up a page or 2 in explaining how Matt & I kept the other parts together over the following years.
I still can't find the original straignt brake levers , that were kept on the original Kos cruiser bars we bought over 25 years ago & were only taken off recently....
The "council cleanup" cover story makes for easier reading.

I'll put in as much attention to period correctness
to this build as I can afford , it will end up as a nice looking restored survivor , we don't build show pony's , we build our old bikes to ride

JB

JB you bloody wind up merchant!!!

lol

nice one look forward to seeing it with chainset installed!