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Captain America
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Easy Rider’s Harley-Davidson Panhead
Basem Wasef
10/01/2005
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Easy Rider’s Harley-Davidson Panhead A lthough legendary actors Peter
Fonda and Dennis Hopper received top billing in the seminal 1969 film Easy
Rider, their co-star Captain America—a chopped Harley-Davidson Panhead with an
American flag emblazoned on its gas tank—gained just as much attention. It
became one of the most evocative motorcycles in American history, transcending
its function as transportation to reach mythic status as a postmodern
icon.
In the opening sequence of Easy Rider, the characters played by Fonda
and Hopper close a huge drug deal, then trade their unremarkable bikes for
ornate custom choppers and embark on a cross-country ride. The more impressive
bike, Captain America, becomes the rolling embodiment of the duo’s newfound
freedom when they line the gas tank with the cash they scored. With its pop art
paint job, extensive chrome detailing, and lavishly raked fork, Captain America
defies convention and the status quo, serving as an antiestablishment symbol in
the heated political atmosphere of the Vietnam era. The casual destruction of
the bike at the film’s end underscores the frailty of counterculture ideals,
representing a freedom that is lost, and perhaps unrecoverable.
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