Looking for Info on S.I.E. Choppers out of 1970's Chicago & their Springers

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  • bpeak
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2012
    • 553

    Looking for Info on S.I.E. Choppers out of 1970's Chicago & their Springers

    I picked up a springer earlier this year that seems to have been identified as an old S.I.E.

    I'll post a few pics next.

    Anyone got any info on S.I.E. Choppers Inc?
    Looks like they had a whole catalog of chopper parts in the 70's.
    Did they get bought out?
    Succumb to the liability lawyer mine field?
    Anyone got any history?
  • bpeak
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2012
    • 553

    #2
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    • bpeak
      Senior Member
      • Nov 2012
      • 553

      #3
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      • bpeak
        Senior Member
        • Nov 2012
        • 553

        #4
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        • bpeak
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2012
          • 553

          #5
          Fairly certain I have a home-brewed top clamp. Other than that... it all looks about right...

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          • TriNortchopz
            Senior Member
            • Dec 2017
            • 3256

            #6
            found this:

            "You know what the "SIE" stood for, right? Steve Iorio Enterprises. This was Iorio's company in Chicago before he bought out Supercycle and started Nostalgia Cycles..." Irish Rich

            "everything Steve Iorio sold back then was JUNK. Had a customer who bought one of SIE's Rigid chopper kits for a Shovel, Nothing, and I mean NOTHING was straight or fit correctly. Chrome was junk,frame was tweaked, mounting holes were off, And the only poorer quality forward control mounts I ever saw, came from Superior cycle in NY in the late 80's. If you put pegs on them and pushed forward with your feet they bent forward, First time. The return policy was a nightmare of excuses and phone disconnections. The customer ended up spending almost another Grand making it work. Only place worse was harley nostalgia." dbkp




            "In 1983, Harley was not selling whole engines to custom bike builders. Steve Iorio, who owned an outfit called Nostalgia Cycle, wasn't really digging that situation, so the Super Vee concept was born. The idea was to create an engine using cheap, easily available small-block Chevy parts, that could power a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. By 1985, the engines were released for sale.
            Iorio was so bold as to suggest that he was going to unseat Harley and put them out of business. He felt Harley was putting the screws to the workin' joe, and the Super Vee was the common man's way to fight back: Engine parts could be had reliably and very affordably from any GM dealership or aftermarket auto parts house.
            ...Supercycle was published by the same guy who owned Nostalgia Cycle, Steve Iorio. Steve had dabbled quite a bit in the motorcycle industry. Those initials may be familiar to some — he used to produce springers under the company name SIE, and hung out with Dick Allen, a motorcycle legend in his own right...

            Ol' Steve also went by a few aliases, including "Steve Nelson." In fact, you can read a lovely article the Los Angeles Times wrote about him — using his fake name! The biggest, most glaring problem with Iorio was his character. The biggest, most glaring problem about the Super Vee was its near-universal reputation of being a complete piece of shit...
            The outfit probably would have folded far sooner if not for a knight in shining armor. Jim Fedor, a machinist who called Ohio home, became a dealer for Nostalgia Cycle, initially ordering three Super Vees. Fedor was one of the few wrenches who identified and repaired the Super Vee's defects from rushed design and less-than-careful assembly. Everyone seemed to think a running Super Vee was like Bigfoot — no more than legend — until Fedor took a crack at them...

            Finally, Iorio terminated Fedor as a dealer, but by then it didn't matter. Jim was the recognized King of the Super Vee, the guy who could reliably fix 'em up and make 'em run.
            And Iorio? He got out of the game in 2001 and sold to a fellow named John Olevich, who produced a fourth generation of the engine with revisions strictly for internal testing purposes. A fifth-gen engine was in the works, but never got off the ground. By 2002, the operation was belly-up."



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            from 1977:
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            If buildin' old school choppers was easy, anyone could do it... ain't nobody said it's gonna be easy...

            Comment

            • rockman96
              Senior Member
              • May 2018
              • 895

              #7
              Yeah, he was a piece of work for sure. I tried to get RA for a part (from NC) back in the late 80's, which never happened. The guy on the phone went to get Steve, and when he returned he said "my boss just griped at me". at least it was only $35 or so.

              Larry Flynt was in there somewhere too, on the Super Cycle end of things.

              Comment

              • ncmc47
                Senior Member
                • Oct 2012
                • 132

                #8
                I was a dealer for Nostalgia Cycle back in the 80's and 90's. They had brake pedals on sale, chrome for $5.00 ordered some. When they came, one was very rusty, and I returned it. Later I ordered a complete brake set up, guess what showed up, that rusty brake pedal. It looked like they went down to the beach and picked it up. I set it a side, figured I would save the next guy a hassle. They would send anything close to get the money, and deal with the correct part, later. There were a few people who really tried, like that Karen Hardbody chick, but the rest were clowns. Stuff anything in a box to get the money.

                Comment

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