The Sabertooth Tiger motorcycle might be called “Vaughn Shafer’s Excellent Masterpiece.”
That’s because the most fun Shafer ever had as a Hollywood stuntman was during the filming of the 1989 hit “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” the breakout movie for a young actor by the name of Keanu Reeves.
The 45-year-old, now retired from Hollywood, is also a master blacksmith. He has put together what already has been recognized as one of the most distinctive motorcycles in the world: a chopper the size of the prehistoric sabertooth Tiger that is an exact anatomical replica of the animal.
It took him three years to handcraft the chopper in his shop — the Bare Bronz (pronounced “bones”) Choppers — in the community of El Jebel near Aspen.
“Oh my God, it was a work with a lot of TLC involving time, labor and love,” Shafer said Tuesday.
The front of the motorcycle looks like a Sabertooth Tiger’s skull. It is, in fact, a replica of a Sabertooth Tiger skull unearthed near Moab, Utah.
The motorcycle has exact replicas of a Sabertooth’s spine, ribs, shoulder blades, leg bones, pumping heart, lungs and veins, handcrafted by Shafer from the metals at his shop.
The veins are the chopper’s electrical and spark plug wires. The leg bones are the suspension system. The coil cover is the heart and the gas tank is the lungs, surrounded by finely crafted ribs.
The project cost him $50,000, but the work paid off.
Two weeks ago, the Sabertooth Tiger Chopper, completed only two days before, took its first breath at the Sturgis Rally in Sturgis, S.D., and won second place in the world in both the “Most Unusual Bike” and “Sculptures of Steel” categories.
Vaughn and his wife Lori started Iron Arts & Interiors in El Jebel in 1994, and have done a variety of ornamental iron around Colorado’s Western Slope. Vaughn began forging a North American wildlife series in 1998, and after crafting the animals turned his attention to choppers beginning in 2003.
“We recently finished The Sabertooth Tiger after three years of endless hours of love and labor and penny-pinching,” Lori said.
“The Saber is anatomically correct. Everything is old school — hand-forged, bent and beat,” she added. “I think it is incredibly unique.”
The Sabertooh Tiger Chopper travels in style — in a custom trailer that is a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s hearse. On the front, Vaughn said, is the Grim Reaper, a life-size replica of that infamous figure who is “The Keeper of the Bike.”
As Vaughn Shafer traveled to and from Sturgis, and at the rally itself, people were able to see the Sabertooth Tiger Chopper through the large glass windows of the hearse, flood-lit for artistic emphasis.
Shafer has big plans for the Sabertooth Tiger Chopper. “I hope to get it into movies and commercials and then turn around and sell it,” he said.
Shafer — who spent 10 years specializing in leaping from helicopters and the top of buildings into air bags — can draw help from friendships he made in Hollywood. He knows some of Hollywood’s busiest stars, some of whom make their homes in nearby Aspen and other parts of the Rocky Mountain region.
He believes that they might provide his Sabertooth Tiger Chopper a wonderful and lasting home.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
